When at length she was down on the ground, she asked Blair if her bonnet was on straight: “Because, my dear”—and Ruth could not for her life tell to whom she was speaking—“nothing characterizes a woman more than her bonnet.”
Then having been assured that this mark of character was all right, she turned to Ruth, and said, with the greatest graciousness:
“How do you do, my dear? You must allow me to kiss you. I am Cousin Thomasia.”
Ruth’s surprised look as she greeted her, perhaps, made her add, “I am everybody’s Cousin Thomasia.”
It was indeed as she said, she was everybody’s Cousin Thomasia, and before she had been in the house ten minutes, Ruth felt as if she were, at least, hers. She accepted the arm-chair offered her, with the graciousness of a queen, and spread out her faded skirts with an air which Ruth noted and forthwith determined to copy. Then she produced her knitting, and began to knit so quietly that it was almost as if the yarn and needles had appeared at her bidding. The next instant she began a search for something—began it casually, so casually that she knit between-times, but the search quickened and the knitting ceased.
“Blair?——!”
“You brought them with you, Cousin Thomasia.”
“No, my dear, I left them, I’m sure I left them——” (searching all the time) “right on—Where can they be?”
“I saw you have them in the wagon.”
“Then I’ve dropped them—Oh, dear! dear! What shall I do?”