At the table she met with the old man, who had seen her alight from the carriage, and had asked the mischievous Victor, "Who was the small biped Richard had brought home?"
"That," said Victor. "Why, that is Charlie turned into a girl." And preposterous as the idea seemed, the old man seized upon it at once, smoothing Edith's hair when he saw her, tapping her rosy cheeks, calling her Charlie, and muttering to himself of the wonderful process which had transformed his fair-haired boy into a black-haired girl.
Sometimes the utter impossibility of the thing seemed to penetrate even his darkened mind, and then he would whisper, "I'll make believe it's Charlie, any way," so Charlie he persisted in calling her, and Richard encouraged him in this whim, when he found how much satisfaction it afforded the old man to "make believe."
The day following Edith's arrival at Collingwood there was a long consultation between Richard and Victor concerning the little girl, about whose personal appearance the former would now know something definite.
"How does Edith Hastings look?" he asked, and after a moment of grave deliberation, Victor replied,
"She has a fat round face, with regular features, except that the nose turns up somewhat after the spitfire order, and her mouth is a trifle too wide. Her forehead is not very high—it would not become her style if it were. Her hair is splendid—thick, black and glossy as satin, and her eyes,—there are not words enough either in the French or English language with which to describe her eyes—they are so bright and deep that nobody can look into them long without wincing. I should say, sir, if put on oath, there was a good deal of the deuce in her eyes."
"When she is excited, you mean," interrupted Richard. "How are they in repose?"
"They are never there," returned Victor. "They roll and turn and flash and sparkle, and light upon one so uncomfortably, that he begins to think of all the badness he ever did, and to wonder if those coals of fire can't ferret out the whole thing."
"I like her eyes," said Richard, "but go on. Tell me of her complexion."
"Black, of course," continued Victor, "but smooth as glass, with just enough of red in it to make rouge unnecessary. On the whole I shouldn't wonder if in seven or eight years' time she'd be as handsome as the young lady of Collingwood ought to be."