Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/334

324 "It is, though," said Joe, rising and coming toward her, offering her his one hand. "You and your mother would n't come to see me, and so I came to see you."

Tilly's hand having been all the morning in hot soap-suds, was red and swollen and puckered, but it looked beautiful to Joe; so did Tilly's awkward little laugh, as she said, half drawing back her hand:—

"I 've been washing; that 's what makes my hands look so."

There was something in the infantile and superfluous honesty of this remark which reminded Joe instantly of the sentence in Tilly's letter: "We had the red worsted in the house. That is the reason the stockings were that color," and he smiled at the memory. His smile was such a cordial one that Tilly did not misinterpret it, and his spontaneous reply, as he took her hand in his, was worthy of a courtier.

"I often saw my mother's hands look like this, Miss Bennet. She always did a great part of the washing."

Tilly stood still looking ill at ease, and Joe stood still, also looking ill at ease. There seemed to be nothing now to say. Mrs. Bennet cut the Gordian knot, as she had cut one or two already.

"Go along, Tilly," she said. "Get off your washing duds; it 's near dinner time."

Tilly was glad to escape to her own room. Once