Miss Scarborough laughed, but her face flushed deeply with pleasure. Then she in her turn scrutinized the slender figure in the checked homespun dress, the small face with its lines of purity and look of race, the well-carried head, smoothly plaited hair, and austere blue eyes.
“I like your looks, too,” she said.
At this the child again smiled the rare smile.
“I am glad,” she said; “now you must eat before it is cold.”
Miss Scarborough reached for the negligée of pink-flowered silk that hung beside her bed, and drew it over her delicate, embroidered gown, Emily looking on large-eyed.
“You dress up in blossoms, don’t you?” she exclaimed, with another joyous sigh.
“Emily,” said Miss Scarborough, “I do believe that you have the artistic temperament. You love beauty, don’t you?”
“Ugly things they hurts me here in my breast,” replied the child, solemnly, pressing both small hands upon her stomach.
For two days thereafter the distinguished guest remained in the school, visiting its departments, talking graciously with its workers; but she lingered longest in the classrooms where Emily recited, or at the table or loom where Emily worked, and the attraction between the two was plain to be seen.
On Friday morning the nag sent by Dosia arrived, and at noon Miss Scarborough and Emily set out for the Vance home, formerly that of the Scarboroughs. The last two miles the trail followed the summit of a ridge, with glorious views on each hand of mountains in autumnal splendor. At the highest point Emily reached around her cousin’s waist and stopped the nag.