"What was she like?" asked the girl, still with that meditative air.
"My dear, she was like--like a picture on a chocolate-box. I can say
no more than that. She was little and fair-haired, with a very pretty
complexion, and a ribbon in her hair always. Laurie brought her up
here to see me, you know--in the garden; I felt I could not bear to
have her in the house just yet, though, of course, it would have had
to have come. She spoke very carefully, but there was an unmistakable
accent. Once she left out an aitch, and then she said the word over
again quite right."
Maggie nodded gently, with a certain air of pity, and Mrs. Baxter went
on encouraged.
"She had a little stammer that--that Laurie thought very pretty, and
she had a restless little way of playing with her fingers as if on a
piano. Oh, my dear, it would have been too dreadful; and now, my poor
boy--"
The old lady's eyes filled with compassionate tears, and she laid her
sewing down to fetch out a little lace-fringed pocket-handkerchief.
Maggie leaned back with one easy movement in her low chair, clasping
her hands behind her head; but she still said nothing. Mrs. Baxter
finished the little ceremony of wiping her eyes, and, still winking a
little, bending over her needlework, continued the commentary.
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