intense desire to box her ears. That eye-glass was her especial
aversion, for Trix was no more near-sighted than herself, but
pretended to be because it was the fashion, and at times used the
innocent glass as a weapon with which to put down any one who
presumed to set themselves up. The supercilious glance which
accompanied her ironically polite speech roused Polly, who
answered with sudden color and the kindling of the eyes that
always betrayed a perturbed spirit, “I don’t think many of us would
enjoy that selfish sort of peace, while little children starve, and
girls no older than us kill themselves because their dreadful
poverty leaves them no choice but sin or death.”
A sudden lull took place, for, though Polly, did not raise her voice,
it was full of indignant emotion, and the most frivolous girl there
felt a little thrill of sympathy; for the most utterly fashionable life
does not kill the heart out of women, till years of selfish pleasure
have passed over their heads. Trix was ashamed of herself; but she
felt the same antagonism toward Polly, that Polly did toward her;
and, being less generous, took satisfaction in plaguing her. Polly
did not know that the secret of this was the fact that Tom often
held her up as a model for his fianc,e to follow, which caused that
young lady to dislike her more than ever.
“Half the awful stories in the papers are made up for a sensation,
and it ‘s absurd to believe them, unless one likes to be harrowed
up. I don’t; and as for peace, I ‘m not likely to get much, while I
have Tom to look after,” said Trix, with an aggravating laugh.
Polly’s needle snapped in two, but she did not mind it, as she said,
with a look that silenced even sharp-tongued Trix, “I can’t help
believing what my own eyes and ears have seen and heard. You
lead such safe and happy lives, you can’t imagine the misery that is
all round you; but if you could get a glimpse of it, it would make
your hearts ache, as it has mine.”
“Do you suffer from heartache? Some one hinted as much to me,
but you looked so well, I could n’t believe it.”
Now that was cruel in Trix, more cruel than any one guessed; but
girls’ tongues can deal wounds as sharp and sudden as the slender
stiletto Spanish women wear in their hair, and Polly turned pale, as
those words stabbed her. Belle saw it, and rushed to the rescue
with more good-will than wisdom.
“Nobody ever accused you of having any heart to ache with. Polly
and I are not old enough yet to get tough and cool, and we are still
silly enough to pity unhappy people, Tom Shaw especially,” added
Belle, under her breath.
That was a two-edged thrust, for Trix was decidedly an old girl,
and Tom was generally regarded as a hapless victim. Trix turned
red; but before she could load and fire again, Emma Davenport,
who labored under the delusion that this sort of skirmishing was
ill-natured, and therefore ill-bred, spoke up in her pleasant way,
“Speaking of pitying the poor, I always wonder why it is that we
all like to read and cry over their troubles in books, but when we
have the real thing before us, we think it is uninteresting and
disagreeable.”
“It ‘s the genius that gets into the books, which makes us like the
poverty, I fancy. But I don’t quite agree that the real thing is n’t
interesting. I think it would be, if we knew how to look at and feel
it,” said Polly, very quietly, as she pushed her chair out of the
arctic circle of Miss Perkins, into the temperate one of friendly
Emma.
“But how shall we learn that? I don’t see what we girls can do,
more than we do now. We have n’t much money for such things,
should n’t know how to use it if we had; and it is n’t proper for us
to go poking into dirty places, to hunt up the needy. ‘Going about
doing good, in pony phaetons,’ as somebody says, may succeed in