The next moment into the room came her aunt, large, decorously glittering, fundamentally important. She was also warm-hearted, and she took her niece in her arms and kissed her as if she wanted to kiss her. Then she did as Cornelia had done—held her at arm’s length and looked at her. “You dear child!” she said. “I’ve wanted so long to get hold of you. A man never knows how to bring up a girl; she has to do it all herself. You’ve done it excellently, I can see, Elsie. You have lovely taste; that’s just the dress I’d have picked out for you myself. And to think I haven’t seen you since your dear mother left us! Cornelia hasn’t seen you for much longer than that—you and she haven’t had a glimpse of each other since you were ten or eleven years old.” “Yes,” Elsie said. “I saw her a little while ago.” She gulped feebly, and by a great effort kept her voice steady. “Aunt Mildred, how proud of her you must be! I want to tell you something: I think Cornelia is the very prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” Mrs. Cromwell took her hands from her niece’s shoulders, and, smiling, stepped backward a pace and shook her head. “No,” she said. “Cornelia’s very pretty, but she isn’t _that_ pretty.” “I think she is.” “No.” Mrs. Cromwell laughed; then became serious. She swept a look over her niece from head to foot—the accurately estimating scrutiny of an intelligent and experienced woman who is careful to be an honest mother. “Of course Cornelia isn’t in your class,” she said, quietly. Then she turned to the door. “Come down to the drawing-room a minute or so before seven,” she said, and was gone. Elsie stood, cataleptic. The words seemed to linger upon the stirred air of the spacious room. “Of course Cornelia isn’t in your class.” Cornelia’s mother had not intended to be satirical; she had been perfectly serious and direct, and she had really meant that Cornelia, not Elsie, was of the lower class of prettiness. Here were three dumfounding things in a row: “_My_, but you’re lovely!” “It certainly becomes you—I might say it looks like you.” “Of course Cornelia isn’t in your class.” The third was the astounding climax that now made the first two almost—almost convincing! Elsie rushed to the long mirror and in a turmoil of bewilderment gazed and gazed at what she saw there. And as she looked, there slowly came a little light that grew to be a sparkling in those startled eyes of hers; her lips parted; breathlessly she smiled a little;—then, all in a flash, radiantly. For what she saw in the mirror was charming. No fear of hers, no long experience of neglect, could deny it; and at last she was sure that whatever the wrong thing about her was, it could be nothing she would ever see in a mirror. She was actually what at home she had sometimes suspected and then believed impossible. She was beautiful—and knew it!