She looked very childish, with her hair in a braid on
the pillow, and her slim young arms and throat bare.
"I'm so glad you came!" she said, and would not be satisfied until the
light was just right for my eyes, and my coat unfastened and thrown
open.
"I'm not really ill," she informed me. "I'm--I'm just tired and
nervous, and--and unhappy, Mrs. Pitman."
"I am sorry," I said. I wanted to lean over and pat her hand, to draw
the covers around her and mother her a little,--I had had no one to
mother for so long,--but I could not. She would have thought it queer
and presumptuous--or no, not that. She was too sweet to have thought
that.
"Mrs. Pitman," she said suddenly, "_who was_ this Jennie Brice?"
"She was an actress. She and her husband lived at my house."
"Was she--was she beautiful?"
"Well," I said slowly, "I never thought of that. She was handsome, in
a large way."
"Was she young?"
"Yes. Twenty-eight or so."
"That isn't very young," she said, looking relieved. "But I don't
think men like very young women.
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