"Your estimate," said my Father, "is conservative." "And the hair?" said the Blinded Lady. "It hasn't exactly the texture of gold." "'Penny-colored' we call it!" said my Mother. "And not exactly a _new_ penny at that, is it?" said the Blinded Lady. "N--o," said my Mother. "But rather jolly all the same like a penny that's just bought two sticks of candy instead of one!" "And the nose turns up a little?" said the Blinded Lady. "Well maybe just a--trifle," admitted my Mother. The Blinded Lady stroked my face all over again. "U-m-m-m," she said. "Well at least it's something to be thankful for that everything is perfectly normal!" She put her hands on my shoulders. She shook me a little. "Never, _never_, Ruthie," she said, "be so foolish as to complain because you're not pretty!" "No'm!" I promised. "Put all the Beauty you can _inside_ your head!" said the Blinded Lady. "Yes'm!" I promised. "And I've just thought of another one that I know! It's about You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be----" "_Foolish!_" said the Blinded Lady. "It wasn't sounds I was thinking of this time, but _sights_!" She pushed me away. She sighed and sighed. It puffed her all out. "O--h," she sighed. "O--h! Three pairs of Young Eyes and all the World waiting to be looked at!" She rocked her chair. She rocked it very slowly. It was like a little pain. "I never saw _anything_ after I was seventeen!" she said. "And God himself knows that I hadn't seen anywheres near enough before that! Just the little grass road to the village now and then on a Saturday afternoon to buy the rice and the meat and the matches and the soap! Just the wood-lot beyond the hill-side where the Arbutus always blossomed so early! Just old Neighbor Nora's new patch-work quilt!--Just a young man's face that looked in once at the window to ask where the trout brook was! But even these pictures," said the Blinded Lady, "They're fading! Fading! Sometimes I can't remember at all whether old Nora's quilt was patterned in diamond shapes or squares. Sometimes I'm not so powerful sure whether the young man's eye were blue or brown! After all, it's more'n fifty years ago. It's new pictures that I need now," she said. "New pictures!" She took a peppermint from a box. She didn't pass 'em. She rocked her chair. And rocked. And rocked. She smiled a little. It wasn't a real smile. It was just a smile to save her dress. It was just a little gutter to catch her tears. "Oh dear me--Oh dear me--Oh dear me!" said my Mother. "Stop your babbling!" said the Blinded Lady. She sniffed. And sniffed. "But I'll tell you what I'll do," she said. "These children can come back here next Saturday afternoon and----." "Why there's no reason in the world," said my Mother, "why they shouldn't come every day!" The Blinded Lady stopped rocking. She almost screamed.