that had blossomed for her underneath the snow.
CHAPTER XII FORBIDDEN FRUIT
“I ‘M perfectly aching for some fun,” said Polly to herself as she
opened her window one morning and the sunshine and frosty air
set her blood dancing and her eyes sparkling with youth, health,
and overflowing spirits. “I really must break out somewhere and
have a good time. It ‘s quite impossible to keep steady any longer.
Now what will I do?” Polly sprinkled crumbs to the doves, who
came daily to be fed, and while she watched the gleaming necks
and rosy feet, she racked her brain to devise some unusually
delightful way of enjoying herself, for she really had bottled up her
spirits so long, they were in a state of uncontrollable
effervescence.
“I ‘ll go to the opera,” she suddenly announced to the doves. “It ‘s
expensive, I know, but it ‘s remarkably good, and music is such a
treat to me. Yes, I ‘ll get two tickets as cheap as I can, send a note
to Will, poor lad, he needs fun as much as I do, and we ‘ll go and
have a nice time in some corner, as Charles Lamb and his sister
used to.”
With that Polly slammed down the window, to the dismay of her
gentle little pensioners, and began to fly about with great energy,
singing and talking to herself as if it was impossible to keep quiet.
She started early to her first lesson that she might have time to buy
the tickets, hoping, as she put a five-dollar bill into her purse, that
they would n’t be very high, for she felt that she was not in a mood
to resist temptation. But she was spared any struggle, for when she
reached the place, the ticket office was blocked up by eager
purchasers and the disappointed faces that turned away told Polly
there was no hope for her.
“Well, I don’t care, I ‘ll go somewhere, for I will have my fun,” she
said with great determination, for disappointment only seemed to
whet her appetite. But the playbills showed her nothing inviting
and she was forced to go away to her work with the money burning
her pocket and all manner of wild schemes floating in her head. At
noon, instead of going home to dinner, she went and took an ice,
trying to feet very gay and festive all by herself. It was rather a
failure, however, and after a tour of the picture shops she went to
give Maud a lesson, feeling that it was very hard to quench her
longings, and subside into a prim little music teacher.
Fortunately she did not have to do violence to her feelings very
long, for the first thing Fanny said to her was: “Can you go?”
“Where?”
“Did n’t you get my note?”
“I did n’t go home to dinner.”
“Tom wants us to go to the opera to-night and ” Fan got no further,
for Polly uttered a cry of rapture and clasped her hands.
“Go? Of course I will. I ‘ve been dying to go all day, tried to get
tickets this morning and could n’t, been fuming about it ever since,
and now oh, how splendid!” And Polly could not restrain an
ecstatic skip, for this burst of joy rather upset her.
“Well, you come to tea, and we ‘ll dress together, and go all
comfortable with Tom, who is in a heavenly frame of mind
to-day.”
“I must run home and get my things,” said Polly, resolving on the
spot to buy the nicest pair of gloves the city afforded.
“You shall have my white cloak and any other little rigging you
want. Tommy likes to have his ladies a credit to him, you know,”
said Fanny, departing to take a beauty sleep.
Polly instantly decided that she would n’t borrow Becky’s best
bonnet, as she at first intended, but get a new one, for in her
present excited state, no extravagance seemed too prodigal in
honor of this grand occasion. I am afraid that Maud’s lesson was
not as thorough as it should have been, for Polly’s head was such a
chaos of bonnets, gloves, opera-cloaks and fans, that Maud