‘My dear, I am so glad to meet you,’ she said. ‘Walter has talked to me often about you. I should like to have seen you before.’
She made me sit down in a big chair; it had a chintz cover with purplish flowers on it; faded, dull sort of flowers.
‘I must look at you,’ she said, ‘you must let me look at you, my dear!’
She put on her spectacles, and looked at me. It was natural that she should want to look, but I felt embarrassed.
‘Yes, you are very pretty, very pretty indeed! Walter told me so. Walter is always right.’
She gave a little nervous laugh.
‘We must make friends now,’ she said; ‘you see, it seems so strange to me, that I do not know you at all. Walter has been such a good son to me, such a devoted son, and good sons make good husbands, so they say. . . . I am sure my Walter will. You are a fortunate young lady, my dear, though I say it, and I am sure you will do your best to deserve him.’
I said I hoped I should. I liked her for thinking so much of Walter; she was so naive, and so single-hearted; the attitude of my friends would have been inconceivable to her.
And I thought:
‘She knows him much better than they do, after all.’