entirely lost his heart. The girls laughed at me when I said so, and
they declared that it would be a very improper thing to do, but I ‘ve
observed that they don’t hesitate to snub ‘ineligible parties,’ as they
call poor, very young, or unpopular men. It ‘s all right then, but
when a nice person comes it ‘s part of the fun to let him go on to
the very end, whether the girls care for him or not. The more
proposals, the more credit. Fan says Trix always asks when she
comes home after the summer excursions, ‘How many birds have
you bagged?’ as if men were partridges. What wicked creatures we
are! some of us at least. I wonder why such a love of conquest was
put into us? Mother says a great deal of it is owing to bad
education nowadays, but some girls seem born for the express
purpose of making trouble and would manage to do it if they lived
in a howling wilderness. I ‘m afraid I ‘ve got a spice of it, and if I
had the chance, should be as bad as any of them. I ‘ve tried it and
liked it, and maybe this is the consequence of that night’s fun.”
Here Polly leaned back and looked up at the little mirror over the
chimney-piece, which was hung so that it reflected the faces of
those about the fire. In it Polly saw a pair of telltale eyes looking
out from a tangle of bright brown hair, cheeks that flushed and
dimpled suddenly as the fresh mouth smiled with an expression of
conscious power, half proud, half ashamed, and as pretty to see as
the coquettish gesture with which she smoothed back her curls and
flourished a white hand. For a minute she regarded the pleasant
picture while visions of girlish romances and triumphs danced
through her head, then she shook her hair all over her face and
pushed her chair out of range of the mirror, saying, with a droll
mixture of self-reproach and self-approval in her tone; “Oh,
Puttel, Puttel, what a fool I am!”
Puss appeared to endorse the sentiment by a loud purr and a
graceful wave of her tail, and Polly returned to the subject from
which these little vanities had beguiled her.
“Just suppose it is true, that he does ask me, and I say yes! What a
stir it would make, and what fun it would be to see the faces of the
girls when it came out! They all think a great deal of him because
he is so hard to please, and almost any of them would feel
immensely flattered if he liked them, whether they chose to marry
him or not. Trix has tried for years to fascinate him, and he can’t
bear her, and I ‘m so glad! What a spiteful thing I am. Well, I can’t
help it, she does aggravate me so!” And Polly gave the cat such a
tweak of the ear that Puttel bounced out of her lap in high
dudgeon.
“It don’t do to think of her, and I won’t!” said Polly to herself,
setting her lips with a grim look that was not at all becoming.
“What an easy life I should have plenty of money, quantities of
friends, all sorts of pleasures, and no work, no poverty, no cold
shoulders or patched boots. I could do so much for all at home
how I should enjoy that!” And Polly let her thoughts revel in the
luxurious future her fancy painted. It was a very bright picture, but
something seemed amiss with it, for presently she sighed and
shook her head, thinking sorrowfully, “Ah, but I don’t love him,
and I ‘m afraid I never can as I ought! He ‘s very good, and
generous, and wise, and would be kind, I know, but somehow I
can’t imagine spending my life with him; I ‘m so afraid I should get
tired of him, and then what should I do? Polly Sydney don’t sound
well, and Mrs. Arthur Sydney don’t seem to fit me a bit. Wonder
how it would seem to call him ‘Arthur’?” And Polly said it under