An Old-fashioned Girl by Louisa M. Alcott

evening was over, so enticing was their glitter.

Fanny also lent her a pair of three-button gloves, which completed

her content, and when Tom greeted her with an approving, “Here ‘s

a sight for gods and men! Why, Polly, you ‘re gorgeous!” she felt

that her “fun” had decidedly begun.

“Would n’t Polly make a lovely bride?” said Maud, who was

revolving about the two girls, trying to decide whether she would

have a blue or a white cloak when she grew up and went to operas.

“Faith, and she would! Allow me to congratulate you, Mrs.

Sydney,” added Tom, advancing with his wedding-reception bow

and a wicked look at Fanny.

“Go away! How dare you?” cried Polly, growing much redder than

her rose.

“If we are going to the opera to-night, perhaps we ‘d better start, as

the carriage has been waiting some time,” observed Fan coolly,

and sailed out of the room in an unusually lofty manner.

“Don’t you like it, Polly?” whispered Tom, as they went down

stairs together.

“Very much.”

“The deuce you do!”

“I ‘m so fond of music, how can I help it?

“I ‘m talking about Syd.”

“Well, I ‘m not.”

“You ‘d better try for him.”

“I ‘ll think of it.”

“Oh, Polly, Polly, what are you coming to?”

“A tumble into the street, apparently,” answered Polly as she

slipped a little on the step, and Tom stopped in the middle of his

laugh to pilot her safely into the carriage, where Fanny was already

seated.

“Here ‘s richness!” said Polly to herself as she rolled away, feeling

as Cinderella probably did when the pumpkin-coach bore her to

the first ball, only Polly had two princes to think about, and poor

Cinderella, on that occasion, had not even one. Fanny did n’t seem

inclined to talk much, and Tom would go on in such a ridiculous

manner that Polly told him she would n’t listen and began to hum

bits of the opera. But she heard every word, nevertheless, and

resolved to pay him for his impertinence as soon as possible by

showing him what he had lost.

Their seats were in the balcony, and hardly were they settled,

when, by one of those remarkable coincidences which are

continually occurring in our youth, Mr. Sydney and Fanny’s old

friend Frank Moore took their places just behind them.

“Oh, you villain! You did it on purpose,” whispered Polly as she

turned from greeting their neighbors and saw a droll look on Tom’s

face.

“I give you my word I did n’t. It ‘s the law of attraction, don’t you

see?”

“If Fan likes it, I don’t care.”

“She looks resigned, I think.”

She certainly did, for she was talking and laughing in the gayest

manner with Frank while Sydney was covertly surveying Polly as

if he did n’t quite understand how the gray grub got so suddenly

transformed into a white butterfly. It is a well-known fact that

dress plays a very important part in the lives of most women and

even the most sensible cannot help owning sometimes how much

happiness they owe to a becoming gown, gracefully arranged hair,

or a bonnet which brings out the best points in their faces and puts

them in a good humor. A great man was once heard to say that

what first attracted him to his well-beloved wife was seeing her in

a white muslin dress with a blue shawl on the chair behind her.

The dress caught his eye, and, stopping to admire that, the wearer’s

intelligent conversation interested his mind, and in time, the

woman’s sweetness won his heart. It is not the finest dress which

does the most execution, I fancy, but that which best interprets

individual taste and character. Wise people understand this, and

everybody is more influenced by it than they know, perhaps. Polly

was not very wise, but she felt that every one about her found

something more attractive than usual in her and modestly

attributed Tom’s devotion, Sydney’s interest, and Frank’s

undisguised admiration, to the new bonnet or, more likely, to that

delightful combination of cashmere, silk, and swan’s-down, which,

like Charity’s mantle, seemed to cover a multitude of sins in other

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