Part 23

"Always," said my Mother. "But never deaf!"

"Oh Tush!" said the Blinded Lady. "Don't be stuffy! Afflictions were meant to talk about!"

"But Carol, you see," said my Mother, "can't talk about his! So we don't!"

"Oh--Tush!" said the Blinded Lady.

She pushed Carol away. She thumped her cane on the braided rug.

"There's one here, isn't there," she said, "that hasn't got anything to be sensitive about? Let the Young Lassie come forward," she said, "so I can touch her face!"

It made Rosalee very pink to have her face explored.

The Blinded Lady laughed as she explored it.

"Ha!" she said. "Age about seventeen? Gold hair? Sky-blue eyes? Complexion like peaches and cream?--Not much cause here," laughed the Blinded Lady, "for this Young Lassie ever to worry when she looks in the glass!"

"Oh but she does!" I cried. "She worries herself most to death every time she looks!--She's afraid her hair will turn gray before Derry comes!"

"S-s-h!" said everybody.

The Blinded Lady cocked her head. She ruffled herself. It looked like feathers.

"Derry?" said the Blinded Lady. "Who's Derry?--A beau?"

My Father gruffed his throat.

"Oh Derry's just a young friend of ours," he said.

"He lives in Cuba," said my Mother.

"Cuba's an island!" I said. "It floats in water! They eat bananas! They have fights! It's very hot! There's lots of moonlight! Derry's father says that when Rosalee's married he'll build a----."

"Hush, Ruthy!" said my Father. "You've talked quite enough already!"

The Blinded Lady patted her skirts. They billowed all around her like black silk waves. It looked funny.

"H-m-m-mmm!" she said. "Let the Child-Who's-Talked-Too-Much-Already come forward now so that I can feel her face!"

I went forward just as fast as I could.

The Blinded Lady touched my forehead.

She smoothed my nose,--my cheeks,--my chin.

"U-m-mmm," she said. "And 'Ruthy' you say is what you call her?"

My Father twinkled his eyes.

"We have to call her something!" he said politely.

"And is this bump on the forehead a natural one?" said the Blinded Lady. "Or an accidental one?"

"Both!" said my Father. "That is, it's pre-em-i-nently natural for our daughter Ruthy to have an accidental bump on her forehead."