"Exactly. Wonderfully intelligent for one so young."
Barbara's blue eyes danced merrily and her red lips parted in a mocking smile. A long heavy braid of hair, "the colour of ripe corn," hung over either shoulder and into her lap. She was almost twenty-two, but she still clung to the childish fashion of dressing her hair, because the heavy braids and the hairpins made her head ache. All her gowns were white, either of wool or cotton, and were made to be washed. On Sundays, she sometimes wore blue ribbons on her braids.
Simply Barbara
To Roger, she was very fair. He never thought of her crutches because she had always been lame. She was simply Barbara, and Barbara needed crutches. It had never occurred to him that she might in any way be different, for he was not one of those restless souls who are forever making people over to fit their own patterns.
"Why doesn't your father like to have me come here?" asked Roger, irrelevantly.
"Why doesn't your mother like to have you come?" queried Barbara, quickly on the defensive.
"No, but tell me. Please!"
"Father always goes to bed early."
"But not at eight o'clock. It was a quarter of eight when I came, and by eight he was gone."
"It isn't you, Roger," she said, unwillingly; "it's anyone. I'm all he has, and if I talk much to other people he feels as if I were being taken away from him—that's all. It's natural, I suppose. You mustn't mind him."