"Look at us," she said, pulling Judith to the mirror beside her. "'Fess up now Miss, that you are quite as fascinating as your elderly relative. You forget that you've been growing and changing a lot since I've been away."
Judith gazed at the reflection in the glass which showed her as a slender childish figure with a lengthening mop of pale, ashy hair and a face of delicate intensity. She really had not changed at all in Patricia's short absence, but the different surroundings made both girls view her with other eyes, and she seemed to have taken on new height and color.
"I'm growing!" cried Judith rapturously, turning from the mirror to rush into Elinor's room with the glorious news. "Oh, Elinor, I'm nearly up to Miss Pat's ear-tip now."
Patricia heard Elinor's laughing comments with a smile of satisfaction curving her pink lips. She knew that Judith did not measure a fraction of an inch more than when she left Rockham, but she was glad that the images in the glass had cheered the critical Judith, whose lamentations about her size and coloring were always loudest when she faced a looking-glass.
It was only a very little thing, this incident of cheering Judith, but it warmed Patricia's already glowing heart and added the final drop to her cup of happiness, and she started off on their expedition to the Artemis tea-room with such a radiant face that Judith commented on it.
"Miss Pat," she whispered with a warning nudge as they fell behind the other two in the crowded pavement, "you ought to take a tuck in your smile. Everybody will be looking at us if you go along grinning like that."
But Patricia only smiled the more at this and Judith gave her up in despair of making any impression on her abounding good humor.
"She's perfectly dreadful, Mrs. Nat," she confided as she slipped to her old friend's side, leaving Patricia to Elinor for the rest of the walk. "She doesn't care a bit about how she looks. Lots of people turned to stare at us."
Mrs. Spicer nodded approval of Patricia's reckless course. "Don't you fret, my dear," she soothed Judith. "Miss Pat is worth looking at any time and folks like to see a real happy person once in a while. Land knows why we're all so afraid to show our joyful side to the world. Let her alone. Good times don't last too long for any of us."
Judith meditated on this bit of wisdom and she watched Patricia closely when they reached the street where the house was located. There was no clouding of the bright face, however, at the sight of the substantial graystone building, and Judith drew a sigh of relief that Patricia's happy hour was lengthened by so much.