to make the most beautiful one in the world. You
mustn't be under a mistake under any of any sort;
and you must let us all think for you a little, take
care of you and watch over you. Above all you must
help me with Kate, and you must stay a little for
her; nothing for a long time has happened to me so
good as that you and she should have become friends.
It's beautiful; it's great; it's everything. What
makes it perfect is that it should have come about
through our dear delightful Susie, restored to me,
after so many years, by such a miracle. No that's
more charming to me than even your hitting it off
with Kate. God has been good to one positively;
for I couldn t, at my age, have made a new friend
undertaken, I mean, out of whole cloth, the real
thing. It's like changing one's bankers after fifty:
one doesn't do that. That's why Susie has been
kept for me, as you seem to keep people in your won
derful country, in lavender and pink paper coming
back at last as straight as out of a fairy-tale and with
you as an attendant fairy." Milly hereupon replied
appreciatively that such a description of herself made
her feel as if pink paper were her dress and lavender
its trimming; but Aunt Maud was not to be deterred
by a weak joke from keeping it up. Her interloc
utress could feel besides that she kept it up in perfect
sincerity. She was somehow at this hour a very
happy woman, and a part of her happiness might
precisely have been that her affections and her views
were moving as never before in concert. Unques-

[[236]]

p235 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p236w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p237

v?