Aunt Crete's Emancipation by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

and the beautiful afternoon, wherein, after a delicious nap to the accompaniment of the music of the waves, she was taken to drive in the fringed carriage again, while a bunch of handsome ladies, old and young, sat on the hotel piazza in more of those abundant rockers, and watched her approvingly. She felt that she was of some importance in their eyes. She had suddenly blossomed out of her insignificance, and was worth looking at. It warmed her heart with humble pleasure. She felt that she had won approval, not through any merit of her own, but through Donald's loving kindness. It was wonderful what a charm clothes could work.
    "Put on your gray silk for dinner," said Donald with malice aforethought in his heart.
    "O ," gasped Aunt Crete, "I think I ought to keep that for parties, don't you?"
    "If ever there was a party, it's going to be tonight," said Donald. "It's going to be a surprise party. You want to see if Aunt Carrie and Luella will know you, you know."
    So with trembling fingers Aunt Crete arrayed herself in her purple and fine linen, very materially assisted by a quiet maid, whom Donald had ordered sent to the room, and who persuaded Aunt Crete to let her arrange the pretty white hair.
    It was surprising to see, when the coiffure was complete, that she looked quite like the other old ladies , who were not old at all, only playing old.
    "I don't believe they will know me," whispered Aunt Crete to herself as she stood before the full length mirror and surveyed the effect. "And I didn't think I could ever look like that!" she murmured after a more prolonged gaze, during which she made the acquaintance of her new self. Then she added half wistfully: "I wish I had known it before. I think perhaps they'd have—liked me— more if I'd looked that way all the time." She sighed half regretfully, as if she were bidding good-by to this new vision, and went out to Donald, who awaited her. She felt that the picnic part of her vacation was almost over now, for Carrie and Luella would be sure to manage to spoil it someway.
    Donald looked up from his paper with a welcome in his eyes. It was the first time she had seen him in evening dress, and she thought him handsome as a king.
    "You're a very beautiful woman, Aunt Crete; do you know it?" said Donald with satisfaction. He had felt that the French maid would know how to put just the right touch to Aunt Crete's pretty hair to take away her odd, "unused" appearance. Now she was completely in the fashion, and she looked every inch a lady . She somehow seemed to have natural intuition for gentle manners. Perhaps her kindly heart dictated them, for surely there can be no better manners than come wrapped up with the Golden Rule, and Aunt Crete had lived by that all her life.
    They entered the great dining-hall, and made their way among the palms in a blaze of electric light, with the head waiter bowing obsequiously before them. They had a table to themselves, and Aunt Crete rejoiced in the tiny shaded candles and the hothouse roses in the centre, and lifted the handsome napkins and silver forks with awe. Sometimes it seemed as if she were still dreaming.
    The party from Pleasure Bay had reached home rather late in the afternoon, after a tedious time in the hot sun at a place full of peanut-stands and merry - go - rounds and moving - picture shows. Luella had not had a good time. She had been disappointed that none of the young men in the party had paid her special attention. In fact, the special young man for whose sake she had prodded her mother into going had not accompanied them at all. Luella was thoroughly cross.
    "Mercy, how you've burned your nose, Luella!" said her mother sharply. "It's so unbecoming. The skin is all peeling off. I do wish you'd wear a veil. You can't afford to lose your complexion, with such a figure as you have."
    "O , fiddlesticks! I wish you'd let up on that, ma," snapped Luella. "Didn't you get a letter from Aunt Crete? I wonder what she's thinking about