That's all right. Stay as long as you like.
Don't trouble to get up if you'd rather have your breakfast in bed.
And don't hurry yourself at all. I'll come back by-and-by and see
what's the matter."
Elma didn't know why, but by the very tone of her mother's voice she
felt dimly conscious something strange had happened. Mrs. Clifford
spoke with unusual gentleness, yet with an unwonted tremor.
"Thank you, dear," Elma answered through the door, going back to
the bedside and beginning to undress in a tumult of shame. "Come
again by-and-by. In just five minutes." It would do her good, she
knew, in spite of her shyness, to talk with her mother. Then she
folded her clothes neatly, one by one, on a ohair; hid the peccant
boa away in its own lower drawer; buttoned her neat little embroidered
nightdress tightly round her throat; arranged her front hair into
a careless disorder; and tried to cool down her fiery red cheeks
with copious bathing in cold water. When Mrs. Clifford came back
five minutes later, everything looked to the outer eye of a mere
casual observer exactly as if Elma had laid in bed all night, curled
up between the sheets, in the most orthodox fashion.
But all these elaborate preparations didn't for one moment deceive
the mother's watchful glance, or the keen intuition shared by all
the women of the Clifford family.
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