I stayed for supper, over which Kitty's big Angora cat presided; Kitty herself, her red curls in disorder, whimsical, shrewd, dipping from jest to earnest, teased Helen and waited on her, wholly affectionate and, I guessed, half afraid.
The little den was cosy by the light of an open fire--for it seemed to be one function of the tall, pink-petticoated lamp to make much darkness visible; and Nelly was almost like the Nelly I had known, with her eager talk of home folks and familiar scenes.
She asked about my mother's illness and death that had held me so long in the West, and her great eyes grew dim and soft with tears, and she looked at me like a Goddess grieving; until, sweet as was her sympathy, I forced myself to speak of other topics. And then we grew merry again, talking of college mates and the days when I first knew her, when I was a Sophomore teaching in Hannibal and she was my best scholar--only twelve years old, but she spelled down all the big, husky boys.
"I didn't know what I was doing, did I," I said, "when your father used to say: 'Bright gal, ain't she? I never see the beat of Helen Lizy;' and I would tell him you ought to go to the State University?"
"Think of it!" cried Helen. "If I hadn't gone to college, I shouldn't have come to New York, and, oh, if--but how you must have worked, teaching and doubling college and law school! Why, you were already through two years of law when I entered, only three years later."
"Well, it's been easy enough since, even with tutoring and shorthanding; six lawyers to every case--"
"Wasn't tutoring Helen your main occupation?" asked Kitty Reid audaciously. "I have somehow inferred that--"
But there was a sound of hurrying feet on the stairs, and she sprang to the door, crying:-"Cadge and Pros.! They said they were coming."
On the threshold appeared a lank girl with shining black hair and quick, keen, good-humoured eyes.
"Howdy?" she asked with brisk cordiality; "angel children, hope I see you well."
In her wake was a tall, quiet-looking young man with a reddish-brown beard.
"Salute; salaam," he said; "all serene, Kitty? And you, Miss Winship?"
Then as the two became accustomed to the light, I saw what I had nervously expected. There was a little start, an odd moment of embarrassment. They gazed at Helen with quick wonder at her loveliness, then turned away to hide their surprise.
It was as if in the few days since they had seen her--for the new comers were Kitty's brother and the Miss Bryant of whom everyone speaks as "Cadge"--Helen's beauty had so blossomed that at fresh sight of her they struggled with incredulous amazement almost as a stranger might have done.