"I am going to be good; you'll see," Charlotte whispered, her arms about her aunt's neck.
She felt impatient to show Aunt Virginia she was really in earnest. What could she do? As she dressed for the evening an idea occurred to her. With many a pang she shook out her wavy brown hair and combed it resolutely back from her face. It had always taken an absurd length of time to arrange that drooping mass in just the proper manner, but Lucile had commended her skill. It was much easier to brush it back in a way to show how prettily it grew about her forehead, but Charlotte really considered herself a fright as she tied a blue ribbon on her long braid.
The change gave her rather a chastened look, combined as it was with a timid self-consciousness when she entered the dining-room. Her aunts surveyed her with evident astonishment.
"Well, Charlotte," Mrs. Millard remarked, affably, "you are really a nice-looking little girl when you let yourself alone."
Aunt Virginia patted her hand and said nothing, but Charlotte felt sure she understood.
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
MRS. MILLARD DEPARTS
Relieved and thankful though Miss Virginia felt, and confident, too, that she and Charlotte would now get on very well together, she still had something on her mind. The feeling that she was concealing something from her sister weighed upon her, but not so heavily as her sense of obligation to the shopkeepers. In her agitation she had hardly thanked Miss Pennington; and the more she considered it, the more remarkable their kindness and thoughtfulness appeared. Would Caroline call it officiousness?
Mrs. Millard had gone so far as to acknowledge the shopkeepers seemed to be persons of refinement, and their effort to make a living was, of course, creditable; but she feared they did not quite know their position. Perhaps they were from some small town, where social distinctions were overlooked.