“Indeed, you were,” returned ’Lisbeth, with a beaming face that flatly contradicted her words. “What with you and the two blue kittens, it’s a wonder we ever got anything but skim-milk for our butter. Them roses do look something like cream too.”
By this time Florence had recovered her self-possession: “Is it possible that this is the kind fairy who has done so much for me?” She held out her hand with a frank smile as she spoke.
He stooped, not ungracefully, and took the offered hand, then laid it, almost reverently, upon the heap of roses. “Hardly a fairy,” he remarked gravely; “a gnome or a goblin, perhaps. It was very pleasant service. Are you really better, Miss Amory?”
“Thank you; I feel almost too well to be treated as an invalid. Will you not be seated? And then please tell me how—how—I could have—thought”—
“Oh, I’ll tell you all about it,” broke in ’Lisbeth, with a mischievous look at her tall nephew, who had obediently seated himself on one corner of the bed, that being the only unoccupied portion of the room. “You see, when Wesley”—
Florence flushed slightly; she had thought she recognized the voice, though she had heard it but for a moment that wintry night. The name she remembered.
“—Wesley, he used to call himself ‘Elsie’ when he was a little trudge an’ couldn’t speak plain. So we got into the way of callin’ him that ourselves an’ it’s stuck to him ever since. I’d no notion ye didn’t know who I meant, till you said ‘she’ yesterday. Then, thinks I, I’ll have a little surprise for her, and a good laugh won’t do the child no harm, bless her!”
Harm! Why, the most cynical, crabbed, disappointed old soul in the world must have brightened up at the merry little ripple of laughter that followed. The responsibilities and struggles of the last two or three years had left their trace in the gravity of Florence’s young face when in repose. It had begun to have the American tired look, and it needed excitement or a quick emotion to show to best advantage the intelligent deep-brown eyes, the wavy hair across the strong forehead, and a complexion, naturally fine and clear, rendered even more delicate by her long illness. As she looked up now, with the quick pleasure of a child, and the light of careless merriment in her eyes, her face was very sweet and winning.
