Ellen appeared at the kitchen doorway and after a glance gave a little laughing bow, saying, "Good morning, Miss Ogilvie."
There are few people who look always the same; we vary in our appearance with a headache or a drop in the thermometer; but perhaps nothing is so quick to change our aspect as a reversal in our fortunes. Hertha had worn a pretty suit before, she had been well-shod, but never previously had she stood with such a quiet air of self-confidence. She blushed at Ellen's greeting, her head drooped, and she was Hertha Williams again.
"Oh, it's great!" Ellen exclaimed. "Don't droop your head. Think what a pity it would have been if Hertha Ogilvie had turned out to look like Minnie Barker!"
A picture of Minnie Barker, very freckled, with a snub nose, reddish hair and a shirtwaist that was always pulling up from her skirt at the back, came to Hertha and she laughed. Then sobering, she said, "I'm not going to any one who'll care. If I had a relative or two!"
"There are relatives and relatives," Ellen answered sagely. "This world is such a raffle you might not have inherited the right kind."
"It isn't likely," Hertha added, "that I'd have gotten another set as good as the first," and she smiled at her former sister.
"Good morning, honey," said Mammy, appearing with a plate of biscuit.
They joked a good deal during the meal to which Hertha had invited herself and which she had planned even to the guava jelly, slightly liquid, amorously sweet, which Miss Witherspoon assured her she would never get in the North. The meal over they went outside and the visitor stood with Mammy while she fed the scraps to the chickens, watching them peck and push at one another, each trying to get the best piece.
"Hertha," Ellen said hesitatingly, "there's something Mammy and I want to say."
Hertha shrank within herself. She was fearful when Ellen started in this serious tone, dreading too careful an analysis of their emotions. Understanding this the older woman spoke.