so, anyway; and won’t I teach Minnie in my very best style!”
Puttel purred, Nick chirped approvingly, and Polly ate her dinner
with a better appetite than she had expected. But at the bottom of
her heart there was a sore spot still, and the afternoon lessons
dragged dismally. It was dusk when she got home, and as she sat in
the firelight eating her bread and milk, several tears bedewed the
little rolls, and even the home honey had a bitter taste.
“Now this won’t do,” she broke out all at once; “this is silly and
wicked, and can’t be allowed. I ‘ll try the old plan and put myself
right by doing some little kindness to somebody. Now what shall it
be? O, I know! Fan is going to a party to-night; I ‘ll run up and help
her dress; she likes to have me, and I enjoy seeing the pretty
things. Yes, and I ‘ll take her two or three clusters of my daphne, it
‘s so sweet.”
Up got Polly, and taking her little posy, trotted away to the Shaws’,
determined to be happy and contented in spite of Trix and hard
work.
She found Fanny enduring torment under the hands of the
hair-dresser, who was doing his best to spoil her hair, and distort
her head with a mass of curls, braids, frizzles, and puffs; for
though I discreetly refrain from any particular description, still,
judging from the present fashions, I think one may venture to
predict that six years hence they would be something frightful.
“How kind of you, Polly; I was just wishing you were here to
arrange my flowers. These lovely daphnes will give odor to my
camellias, and you were a dear to bring them. There ‘s my dress;
how do you like it?” said Fanny, hardly daring to lift her eyes from
under the yellow tower on her head.
“It ‘s regularly splendid; but how do you ever get into it?” answered
Polly, surveying with girlish interest the cloud of pink and white
lace that lay upon the bed.
“It ‘s fearfully and wonderfully made, but distractingly becoming,
as you shall see. Trix thinks I ‘m going to wear blue, so she has got
a green one, and told Belle it would spoil the effect of mine, as we
are much together, of course. Was n’t that sweet of her? Belle
came and told me in, time, and I just got pink, so my amiable
sister, that is to be, won’t succeed in her pretty little plot.”
“I guess she has been reading the life of Josephine. You know she
made a pretty lady, of whom she was jealous, sit beside her on a
green sofa, which set off her own white dress and spoilt the blue
one of her guest,” answered Polly, busy with the flowers.
“Trix never reads anything; you are the one to pick up clever little
stories. I ‘ll remember and use this one. Am I done? Yes, that is
charming, is n’t it, Polly?” and Fan rose to inspect the success of
Monsieur’s long labor.
“You know I don’t appreciate a stylish coiffure as I ought, so I like
your hair in the old way best. But this is ‘the thing,’ I suppose, and
not a word must be said.”
“Of course it is. Why, child, I have frizzed and burnt my hair so
that I look like an old maniac with it in its natural state, and have
to repair damages as well as I can. Now put the flowers just here,”
and Fanny laid a pink camellia in a nest of fuzz, and stuck a spray
of daphne straight up at the back of her head.
“O, Fan, don’t, it looks horridly so!” cried Polly, longing to add a
little beauty to her friend’s sallow face by a graceful adjustment of
the flowers.
“Can’t help it, that ‘s the way, and so it must be,” answered Fan,
planting another sprig half-way up the tower.
Polly groaned and offered no more suggestions as the work went
on; but when Fan was finished from top to toe, she admired all she
honestly could, and tried to keep her thoughts to herself. But her