“Oh, Billy, Billy! How good it is to see you! And how fine of you to come this first day I’m at home.”
Billy was only half at ease. He felt old and rude, and in some odd way not good enough to touch her delicate hand, to help her reseat herself. “I had to come, you know.” And though he smiled he remembered that he had wished he were going to see Erminie instead.
Yet now that he was here he felt widely separated from Erminie. A fancy struck into his mind on the instant between sentences: Erminie was the bright red rose, quickly blooming and quickly fading, that grows luxuriantly in plain view in the valley; May Nell was a rare and delicate yet unwithering orchid that hides on the far mountain side.
“Mama says I am not to return to school till the autumn semester opens.”
Again the daintiness, the foreign flavor that attached to all she said or did came with the French “mama.”
“That’s dandy!” and he gave her a boyish scrutiny. “You’re different, older someway; but you’re—just as little.” A teasing mischief danced in his eyes.
“I am older, Billy. Did you think I would always stay a little girl?”
“Thirteen isn’t very old.”
“It’s only three years younger than sixteen.”
“I’m much more than sixteen,” he objected, and thought with dismay of Erminie. Could she feel as much beyond him in age as he felt beyond May Nell?