`` Nothing is much changed , Louisa , '' she said , propping her chin on her plump white hands , and sniffing at the delectable odour of the bruised mint upon which Louisa was trampling . `` I 'm glad ; I was afraid to come back for fear you would have improved the old garden out of existence , or else into some prim , orderly lawn , which would have been worse . It 's as magnificently untidy as ever , and the fence still wobbles . It CA N'T be the same fence , but it looks exactly like it . No , nothing is much changed . Thank you , Louisa . '' Louisa had not the faintest idea what Nancy was thanking her for , but then she had never been able to fathom Nancy , much as she had always liked her in the old girlhood days that now seemed much further away to Louisa than they did to Nancy . Louisa was separated from them by the fulness of wifehood and motherhood , while Nancy looked back only over the narrow gap that empty years make . `` You have n't changed much yourself , Nancy , '' she said , looking admiringly at Nancy 's trim figure , in the nurse 's uniform she had donned to show Louisa what it was like , her firm , pink-and-white face and the the glossy waves of her golden brown hair . `` You 've held your own wonderfully well . '' `` Have n't I ? '' said Nancy complacently . `` Modern methods of massage and cold cream have kept away the crowsfeet , and fortunately I had the Rogerson complexion to start with . You would n't think I was really thirty-eight , would you ? Thirty-eight ! Twenty years ago I thought anybody who was thirty-eight was a perfect female Methuselah . And now I feel so horribly , ridiculously young , Louisa . Every morning when I get up I have to say solemnly to myself three times , ` You 're an old maid , Nancy Rogerson , ' to tone myself down to anything like a becoming attitude for the day . '' `` I guess you do n't mind being an old maid much , '' said Louisa , shrugging her shoulders . She would not have been an old maid herself for anything ; yet she inconsistently envied Nancy her freedom , her wide life in the world , her unlined brow , and care-free lightness of spirit .
`` Oh , but I do mind , '' XXXXX Nancy frankly .
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