It was Susy in her old
girlishness, with the instinct of the grown actress in the arrangement
of her short skirt over her pretty ankles and the half-conscious pose
she had taken.
"Poor dear old Clarence," she said, with dancing eyes; "I might have
won a dozen pairs of gloves from you while you slept there. But you're
tired, dear old boy, and you've had a hard time of it. No matter; you've
shown yourself a man at last, and I'm proud of you."
Half ashamed of the pleasure he felt even in his embarrassment, Clarence
stammered, "But this change--this dress."
Susy clapped her hands like a child. "I knew it would surprise you! It's
an old frock I wore the year I went away with auntie. I knew where it
was hidden, and fished it out again with these keys, Clarence; it seemed
so like old times. Lord! when I was with the old servants again, and
you didn't come down, I just felt as if I'd never been away, and I just
rampaged free. It seemed to me, don't you know, not as if I'd just come,
but as if I'd always been right here, and it was you who'd just come.
Don't you understand! Just as you came when me and Mary Rogers
were here; don't you remember her, Clarence, and how she used to do
'gooseberry' for us? Well, just like that.
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