When she rose she was a figure at which the old
lady who loved her looked with pleased eyes.
"You are beautiful, dearie," she said. "And nobody will guess that your
dress is mended."
"Not a bit, thanks to your clever fingers. Now I'll go find some flowers
to wear, and then I'm off. I'll come back to put you to bed, and you'll
send Bob over if you want the least thing, won't you, even the least?"
Charlotte went out into her garden, holding her skirts carefully away
from possible touch of bush or briar. Late August flowers were many, but
among them were none that pleased her. She came away therefore without a
touch of colour upon her white attire, yet seeming to need none, the
bloom upon her cheek was so clear, the dusk of her hair so rich.
"Isn't she fascinating?" said Winifred Chester in the ear of John Leaver,
as Charlotte came in. "I never saw a girl who seemed so radiantly well
and happy, with so little to make her so. I think she and Madam Chase
must be very poor, all the nice things they have seem so old, and the new
things so very simple. Ellen says the family was a very fine one."
"Very fine," he agreed. His eyes were upon Charlotte as she greeted her
hosts. He answered Winifred's further comments absently. He bowed gravely
in response to Charlotte's recognition of him, then turned and talked
with the pretty girl whom Ellen had asked him to take in to dinner.
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