remarkable-looking woman--oh, certainly remarkable! She greeted him
without surprise and, sitting down close to Tod, said: "I'm glad to see
you."

Why did this family somehow make him feel inferior? The way she sat
there and looked at him so calmly! Still more the way she narrowed her
eyes and wrinkled her lips, as if rather malicious thoughts were
rising in her soul! Her hair, as is the way of fine, soft, almost
indigo-colored hair, was already showing threads of silver; her whole
face and figure thinner than he had remembered. But a striking woman
still--with wonderful eyes! Her dress--Felix had scanned many a crank
in his day--was not so alarming as it had once seemed to Clara; its
coarse-woven, deep-blue linen and needle-worked yoke were pleasing to
him, and he could hardly take his gaze from the kingfisher-blue band or
fillet that she wore round that silver-threaded black hair.

He began by giving her Clara's note, the wording of which he had himself
dictated:


"DEAR KIRSTEEN:

"Though we have not seen each other for so long, I am sure you will
forgive my writing. It would give us so much pleasure if you and the two
children would come over for a night or two while Felix and his young
folk are staying with us. It is no use, I fear, to ask Tod; but
of course if he would come, too, both Stanley and myself would be
delighted.

"Yours cordially,