frank face betrayed her, for Fanny turned on her suddenly, saying,
“You may as well free your mind, Polly, for I see by your eyes that
something don’t suit.”
“I was only thinking of what grandma once said, that modesty had
gone out of fashion,” answered Polly, glancing at the waist of her
friend’s dress, which consisted of a belt, a bit of lace, and a pair of
shoulder straps.
Fanny laughed good-naturedly, saying, as she clasped her necklace,
“If I had such shoulders as yours, I should n’t care what the fashion
was. Now don’t preach, but put my cloak on nicely, and come
along, for I ‘m to meet Tom and Trix, and promised to be there
early.”
Polly was to be left at home after depositing Fan at Belle’s.
“I feel as if I was going myself,” she said, as they rolled along.
“I wish you were, and you would be, Polly, if you weren’t such a
resolute thing. I ‘ve teased, and begged, and offered anything I
have if you ‘ll only break your absurd vow, and come and enjoy
yourself.”
“Thank you; but I won’t, so don’t trouble your kind heart about me;
I ‘m all right,” said Polly, stoutly.
But when they drew up before the lighted house, and she found
herself in the midst of the pleasant stir of festivity, the coming and
going of carriages, the glimpses of bright colors, forms, and faces,
the bursts of music, and a general atmosphere of gayety, Polly felt
that she was n’t all right, and as she drove away for a dull evening
in her lonely little room, she just cried as heartily as any child
denied a stick of candy.
“It ‘s dreadful wicked of me, but I can’t help it,” she sobbed to
herself, in the corner of the carriage. “That music sets me all in a
twitter, and I should have looked nice in Fan’s blue tarlatan, and I
know I could behave as well as any one, and have lots of partners,
though I ‘m not in that set. Oh, just one good gallop with Mr.
Sydney or Tom! No, Tom would n’t ask me there, and I would n’t
accept if he did. Oh, me! oh, me! I wish I was as old and homely,
and good and happy, as Miss Mills!”
So Polly made her moan, and by the time she got home, was just in
the mood to go to bed and cry herself to sleep, as girls have a way
of doing when their small affliction becomes unbearable.
But Polly did n’t get a chance to be miserable very long, for as she
went up stairs feeling like the most injured girl in the world, she
caught a glimpse of Miss Mills, sewing away with such a bright
face that she could n’t resist stopping for a word or two.
“Sit down, my dear, I ‘m glad to see you, but excuse me if I go on
with my work, as I ‘m in a driving hurry to get these things done
to-night,” said the brisk little lady, with a smile and a nod, as she
took a new needleful of thread, and ran up a seam as if for a
wager.
“Let me help you, then; I ‘m lazy and cross, and it will do me
good,” said Polly, sitting down with the resigned feeling. “Well, if
I can’t be happy, I can be useful, perhaps.”
“Thank you, my dear; yes, you can just hem the skirt while I put in
the sleeves, and that will be a great lift.”
Polly put on her thimble in silence, but as Miss Mills spread the
white flannel over her lap, she exclaimed, “Why, it looks like a
shroud! Is it one?”
“No, dear, thank God, it is n’t, but it might have been, if we had n’t
saved the poor little soul,” cried Miss Mills, with a sudden
brightening of the face, which made it beautiful in spite of the stiff
gray curl that bobbed on each temple, the want of teeth, and a
crooked nose.
“Will you tell me about it? I like to hear your adventures and good