“I believe you would.” She looked up suddenly, surprised by a new note in Robert’s voice, and found him looking at her earnestly. The interchange of glances embarrassed both of them, and to cover it, he continued rather hastily, “I don’t understand how a woman of her evident lack of feelings can have such a divine conception of music.”
“I can explain that,” said Meg confidentially. “It was a case of mixed identity. That gift was meant for me, but got switched around some way. I have the love of music, the capacity to suffer manifested by her playing, while she,—she simply expresses what I feel.”
Robert smiled at her whimsical conceit, but made no reply. At her gate she put her hand in his and said, “Good-bye,” simply and quietly. All the defiance and willfulness which usually characterized her were gone, and in their place was a gracious sweetness which enveloped and engrossed him the rest of the evening.
“Alas! how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love.”
Meg came down-stairs to breakfast humming a gay little air to herself, and looking so young and fresh that Mrs. Weston looked at her disapprovingly as she took her seat at the table.
The morning light was unmerciful, showing up the wrinkles and sallowness of the fretful little woman, in direct contrast to the smooth purity of Meg’s skin and the brightness of her eyes. The elder woman wore a somewhat soiled blue wrapper, and there was not the care bestowed upon her appearance that usually characterized it.
She glanced pettishly at Meg as she poured the coffee, and said, “I don’t see why you always wear white.”
Meg smiled at her sunnily, and replied, “Well, I like it—it doesn’t fade, washes well, is economical—”
“And—?” queried her aunt with uplifted eyebrows.
“And is becoming,” finished the girl calmly. Then she added: “What would you have me wear? It would be neither suited to you nor to the glorious summer season to wear drab.”
“That’s _your_ color,” replied Meg, with laughing eyes, “and as it wouldn’t become me so well, I wouldn’t think of wearing it.”
Mrs. Weston’s smile deepened, spread all over her face, into the creases she still fondly believed to be dimples, and diplomatic relations were established.