excuse should be removed.
“I say, Polly, won’t you give some of us fellows music lessons?
Somebody wants me to play, and I ‘d rather learn of you than any
Senor Twankydillo,” said Tom, who did n’t find the conversation
interesting.
“Oh, yes; if any of you boys honestly want to learn, and will
behave yourselves, I ‘ll take you; but I shall charge extra,”
answered Polly, with a wicked sparkle of the eye, though her face
was quite sober, and her tone delightfully business-like.
“Why, Polly, Tom is n’t a boy; he ‘s twenty, and he says I must treat
him with respect. Besides, he ‘s engaged, and does put on such
airs,” broke in Maud who regarded her brother as a venerable
being.
“Who is the little girl?” asked Polly taking the news as a joke.
“Trix; why, did n’t you know it?” answered Maud, as if it had been
an event of national importance.
“No! is it true, Fan?” and Polly turned to her friend with a face full
of surprise, while Tom struck an imposing attitude, and affected
absence of mind.
“I forgot to tell you in my last letter; it ‘s just out, and we don’t like
it very well,” observed Fanny, who would have preferred to be
engaged first herself.
“It ‘s a very nice thing, and I am perfectly satisfied,” announced
Mrs. Shaw, rousing from a slight doze.
“Polly looks as if she did n’t believe it. Have n’t I the appearance of
‘the happiest man alive’?” asked Tom, wondering if it could be pity
which he saw in the steady eyes fixed on him.
“No, I don’t think you have,” she said, slowly.
“How the deuce should a man look, then?” cried Tom, rather
nettled at her sober reception of the grand news.
“As if he had learned to care for some one a great deal more than
for himself,” answered Polly, with sudden color in her cheeks, and
a sudden softening of the voice, as her eyes turned away from
Tom, who was the picture of a complacent dandy, from the
topmost curl of his auburn head to the tips of his aristocratic boots.
“Tommy ‘s quenched; I agree with you, Polly; I never liked Trix,
and I hope it ‘s only a boy-and-girl fancy, that will soon die a
natural death,” said Mr. Shaw, who seemed to find it difficult to
help falling into a brown study, in spite of the lively chatter going
on about him.
Shaw, Jr., being highly incensed at the disrespectful manner in
which his engagement was treated, tried to assume a superb air of
indifference, and finding that a decided failure, was about to stroll
out of the room with a comprehensive nod, when his mother called
after him: “Where are you going, dear?”
“To see Trix, of course. Good-by, Polly,” and Mr. Thomas
departed, hoping that by the skillful change of tone, from ardent
impatience to condescending coolness, he had impressed one
hearer at least with the fact that he regarded Trix as the star of his
existence, and Polly as a presuming little chit.
If he could have heard her laugh, and Fanny’s remarks, his wrath
would have boiled over; fortunately he was spared the trial, and
went away hoping that the coquetries of his Trix would make him
forget Polly’s look when she answered his question.
“My dear, that boy is the most deluded creature you ever saw,”
began Fanny, as soon as the front door banged. “Belle and Trix
both tried to catch him, and the slyest got him; for, in spite of his
airs, he is as soft-hearted as a baby. You see Trix has broken off
two engagements already, and the third time she got jilted herself.
Such a fuss as she made! I declare, it really was absurd. But I do
think she felt it very much, for she would n’t go out at all, and got
thin, and pale, and blue, and was really quite touching. I pitied her,
and had her here a good deal, and Tom took her part; he always
does stand up for the crushed ones, and that ‘s good of him, I
allow. Well, she did the forsaken very prettily; let Tom amuse her,