Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/280

 eyes a great flood of pink rushed to her smooth forehead, and she dropped her lids as she bowed slightly. He reflected irrelevantly that he had never seen Mrs. Dudley blush in his life.

“You are very welcome to all you wish, I am sure,” she said graciously. “I—I didn’t know any one liked them but me. I always have them made for me—I taught her the rule. I always call them”—she laughed nervously, and it dawned on him that this woman was really shy and “talking against time,” as they said—“I always call them ‘Aunt Delia’s cookies.’ They—”

“Aunt Delia’s cookies!” he interrupted. “What Aunt Delia?”

“Aunt Delia Parmentre,” she returned, a little surprised, evidently, at this stranger, who, with a straw sailor-hat in one hand and a warm molasses cooky in the other, stared so intently at her. “She wasn’t really my aunt, of course—”

“But she was mine!” he burst out, “