In a few minutes this door opened and the fair lady fluttered in.
It did not escape my attention that the moment she entered she turned her head on one side, and contracted her eyebrows as if to bid some one else remaining behind there to keep quiet. The momentary opening of the door also permitted me to see that in the direction in which she had looked was a tall tester bed with the curtains drawn close.
The moment, however, that she had shut the door behind her and turned towards me, the face of the lovely lady became all amiability. She hastened up to me and pressed my hand.
"It was very nice of you to come and see me. Don't be angry with me for giving you the trouble."
The lady was now more amiable than ever.
She was in the simplest stay-at-home toilet. The only ornament on her head was her own bright silky hair, twisted up into a knot and tied at the top with a ribbon.
She looked just as she was ten years before, a little girl of sixteen.
Her whole being recalled to me her childish days. There was the same candid, guileless look; those open eyes through which you could read into her very soul; the same artless mouth.
She invited me to sit down. She took my hat and laid it on the table.
"I suppose you'll remain to dinner? I have told the cook to prepare your favourite dish."