But of Ally's happiness there could be no doubt. It lapped her, soaked into her like water and air. Her small head flowered under it and put out its secret colors; the dull gold of her hair began to shine again, her face showed a shallow flush under its pallor; her gray eyes were clear as if they had been dipped in water. Two slender golden arches shone above them. They hadn't been seen there for five years.
"Who would have believed," said Mary, "that Ally could have looked so pretty?"
Ally's prettiness (when she gazed at it in the glass) was delicious, intoxicating joy to Ally. She was never tired of looking at it, of turning round and round to get new views of it, of dressing her hair in new ways to set it off.
"Whatever have you done your hair like that for?" said Mary on a Wednesday when Ally came down in the afternoon with her gold spread out above her ears and twisted in a shining coil on the top of her head.
"To make it grow better," said Ally.
"Don't let Papa catch you at it," said Gwenda, "if you want it to grow any more."
Gwenda was going out. She had her hat on, and was taking her walking-stick from the stand. Ally stared.
"You're not going out?"
"I am," said Gwenda.
And she laughed as she went. She wasn't going to stay at home for
Rowcliffe every Wednesday.