"Sister Ste. Croix."
"Is she the little wrinkled one?"
"Yes, but I've fallen in love with every wrinkle, she's a perfect dear—"
"I didn't imply she wasn't." Mrs. Champney was apt to snap out at Aileen when, according to her idea, she was "gushing" too much. The girl had ceased to mind this; she was used to it, especially during her three years of attendance on this invalid. "Who designed this monogram?"
"She did; she can draw beautifully."
Mrs. Champney put on her glasses to examine in detail the exquisite lettering, A C.
Aileen leaned above her, smiling to herself. How many loving thoughts were wrought into those same initials! How many times, while her fingers were busy fashioning them, she had planned to make just such for her very own! How often, as she wrought, she had laid her lips to the A C, murmuring to herself over and over again, "Aileen—Champney, Champney—Aileen," so filling and satisfying with the sound of this pleasing combination her every loving anticipation!
She was only waiting for the "word", schooling herself in these last six weeks to wait patiently for it—the "word" which should make these special letters her legitimate own!
The singing thoughts that ring in the consciousness of a girl who gives for the first time her whole heart to her lover; the chanted prayers to her Maker, that rise with every muted throb of the young wife's heart which is beating for two in anticipation of her first motherhood—who shall dare enumerate them?
The varied loving thoughts in this girl's quick brain, which was fed by her young pulsing heart—a heart single in its loyalty to one during all the years since her orphan childhood, were intensified and illumined by the inherent quickening power of a vivid imagination, and inwrought with these two letters that stood, at present, for their owner, Almeda Champney. Aileen's smile grew wonderfully tender, almost tremulous as she continued to lean above her work. Mrs. Champney looking up suddenly caught it and, in part, interpreted it. It angered her both unreasonably and unaccountably. This girl must be taught her place. She aspiring to Champney Googe! She handed her back the work.