"I declare. Honey-bud, you are all rose colour to-day," said Celia
Craig, smiling; and, on impulse, unpinned the pink-and-white cameo
from her own throat and fastened it to Ailsa's breast.
"I reckon I'll slip on a gay gown myse'f," she added mischievously.
"I certainly am becoming ve'y tired of leaving the field to my
sister-in-law, and my schoolgirl daughters."
"Does anybody ever look at us after you come into a room?" asked
Ailsa, laughing; and, turning impulsively, she pressed Celia's
pretty hands flat together and kissed them. "You darling," she
said. An unaccountable sense of expectancy--almost of exhilaration
was taking possession of her. She looked into the mirror and stood
content with what she saw reflected there.
"How much of a relation is he, Celia?" balancing the rosy bow with
a little cluster of pink hyacinth on the other side.
Celia Craig, forefinger crooked across her lips, considered aloud.
"His mother was bo'n Constance Berkley; her mother was bo'n
Betty Ormond; her mother was bo'n Felicity Paige; her
mother----"
"Oh please! I don't care to know any more!" protested Ailsa,
drawing her sister-in-law before the mirror; and, standing behind
her, rested her soft, round chin on her shoulder, regarding the two
reflected faces.
"That," observed the pretty Southern matron, "is conside'd ve'y bad
luck. When I was a young girl I once peeped into the glass over my
ole mammy's shoulder, and she said I'd sho'ly be punished befo' the
year was done."
"And were you?"
"I don't exactly remember," said Mrs. Craig demurely, "but I think
I first met my husband the ve'y next day."
They both laughed softly, looking at each other in the mirror.
So, in her gown of rosy muslin, bouffant and billowy, a pink flower
in her hair, and Celia's pink-and-white cameo at her whiter throat
Ailsa Paige descended the carpeted stairs and came into the mellow
dimness of the front parlour, where there was much rosewood, and a
French carpet, and glinting prisms on the chandeliers,--and a young
man, standing, dark against a bar of sunshine in which golden motes
swam.
"How do you do," she said, offering her narrow hand, and: "Mrs.
Craig is dressing to receive you. . . . It is warm for April, I
think. How amiable of you to come all the way over from New York.
Mr. Craig and his son Stephen are at business, my cousins, Paige
and Marye, are at school. Won't you sit down?"