An Old-Fashioned Girl (25 page)

“I’m rushing madly into expense, I’m afraid; but the fit is on me, and I’ll eat bread and water for a week to make up for
it. I
must
look nice, for Tom seldom takes me, and ought to be gratified when he does. I want to do like other girls, just for once,
and enjoy myself without thinking about right and wrong. Now a bit of pink ribbon to tie it with, and I shall be done in time
to do up my best collar,” she said, turning her boxes topsy-turvy for the necessary ribbon, in that delightful flurry which
young ladies feel on such occasions.

It is my private opinion, that the little shifts and struggles we poor girls have to undergo beforehand, give a peculiar relish
to our fun when we get it. This fact will account for the rapturous mood in which Polly found herself when, after making her
bonnet, washing and ironing her best set, blacking her boots and mending her fan, she at last, like Consuelo, “put on a little
dress of black silk,” and with the smaller adornments pinned up in a paper, started for the Shaws’, finding it difficult to
walk decorously, when her heart was dancing in her bosom.

Maud happened to be playing a redowa up in the parlor, and Polly came prancing into the room so evidently spoiling for a dance,
that Tom, who was there, found it impossible to resist catching her about the waist, and putting her through the most intricate
evolutions, till Maud’s fingers gave out.

“That was splendid! Oh, Tom, thank you so much for asking me tonight. I feel just like having a regular good time,” cried
Polly, when she stopped, with her hat hanging round her neck, and her hair looking as if she had been out in a high wind.

“Glad of it. I felt so myself, and thought we’d have a jolly little party all in the family,” said Tom, looking much gratified
at her delight.

“Is Trix sick?” asked Polly.

“Gone to New York for a week.”

“Ah, when the cat’s away the mice will play.”

“Exactly; come and have another turn.”

Before they could start, however, the awful spectacle of a little dog trotting out of the room with a paper parcel in his
mouth, made Polly clasp her hands with the despairing cry —

“My bonnet! Oh, my bonnet!”

“Where? What? Which?” and Tom looked about him bewildered.

“Snip’s got it. Save it! Save it!”

“I will!” and Tom gave chase with more vigor than discretion.

Snip, evidently regarding it as a game got up for his special benefit, enjoyed the race immensely, and scampered all over
the house, shaking the precious parcel like a rat, while his master ran and whistled, commanded and coaxed in vain. Polly
followed, consumed with anxiety, and Maud laughed till Mrs. Shaw sent down to know who was in hysterics. A piteous yelp from
the lower regions at last announced that the thief was captured, and Tom appeared, bearing Snip by the nape of the neck in
one hand, and Polly’s cherished bonnet in the other.

“The little scamp was just going to worry it when I grabbed him. I’m afraid he has eaten one of your gloves; I can’t find
it, and this one is pretty well chewed up,” said Tom, bereaving Snip of the torn kid, to which he still pertinaciously clung.

“Serves me right,” said Polly, with a groan. “I’d no business to get a new pair, but I wanted to be extra gorgeous tonight,
and this is my punishment for such mad extravagance.”

“Was there anything else?” asked Tom.

“Only my best cuffs and collar; you’ll probably find them in the coal-bin,” said Polly, with the calmness of despair.

“I saw some little white things on the dining room floor as I raced through. Go get them, Maud, and we’ll repair damages,”
said Tom, shutting the culprit into the boot closet, where he placidly rolled himself up and went to sleep.

“They ain’t hurt a bit,” proclaimed Maud, restoring the lost treasures.

“Neither is my bonnet, for which I’m deeply grateful,” said Polly, who had been examining it with a solicitude which made
Tom’s eyes twinkle.

“So am I, for it strikes me that is an uncommonly ‘nobby’ little affair,” he said, approvingly. Tom had a weakness for pale
pink roses, and perhaps Polly knew it.

“I’m afraid it’s too gay,” said Polly, with a dubious look.

“Not a bit; sort of bridal, you know. Must be becoming; put it on, and let’s see.”

“I wouldn’t for the world, with my hair all tumbling down. Don’t look at me till I’m respectable, and don’t tell anyone how
I’ve been acting. I think I must be a little crazy tonight,” said Polly, gathering up her rescued finery, and preparing to
go and find Fan.

“Lunacy is mighty becoming, Polly; try it again,” answered Tom, watching her as she went laughing away, looking all the prettier
for her dishevelment. “Dress that girl up, and she’d be a raving, tearing beauty,” added Tom to Maud, in a lower tone, as
he took her into the parlor under his arm.

Polly heard it, and instantly resolved to be as “raving and as tearing” as her means would allow, “just for one night,” she
said, as she peeped over the banisters, glad to see that the dance and the race had taken the “band-boxy” air out of Tom’s
elegant array.

I deeply regret being obliged to shock the eyes and ears of such of my readers as have a prejudice in favor of pure English,
by expressions like the above; but, having rashly undertaken to write a little story about Young America, for Young America,
I feel bound to depict my honored patrons as faithfully as my limited powers permit; otherwise, I must expect the crushing
criticism, “Well, I dare say it’s all very prim and proper, but it isn’t a bit like us,” and never hope to arrive at the distinction
of finding the covers of “An Old-Fashioned Girl” the dirtiest in the library.

The friends had a social “cup o’ tea” upstairs, which Polly considered the height of luxury; and then each took a mirror,
and proceeded to prink to her heart’s content. The earnestness with which Polly made her toilet that night was delightful
to behold. Feeling in a daring mood, she released her pretty hair from the braids in which she usually wore it, and permitted
the curls to display themselves in all their brown abundance, especially several dangerous little ones about the temples and
forehead. The putting on of the rescued collar and cuffs was a task which absorbed her whole mind; so was the settling of
a minute bit of court-plaster, just to the left of the dimple in her chin, an unusual piece of coquetry, in which Polly would
not have indulged, if an almost invisible scratch had not given her an excuse for doing it. The white, down-trimmed cloak,
with certain imposing ornaments on the hood, was assumed with becoming gravity, and draped with much advancing and retreating
before the glass, as its wearer practised the true Boston gait, elbows back, shoulders forward, a bend and a slide, occasionally
varied by a slight skip. But when that bonnet went on, Polly actually held her breath till it was safely landed, and the pink
rose bloomed above the smooth waves of hair, with what Fanny called “a ravishing effect.” At this successful stage of affairs,
Polly found it impossible to resist the loan of a pair of gold bands for the wrists, and Fanny’s white fan, with the little
mirror in the middle.

“I can put them in my pocket if I feel too much dressed,” said Polly, as she snapped on the bracelets; but, after a wave or
two of the fan, she felt that it would be impossible to take them off till the 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.

“Wouldn’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 tonight, 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 downstairs 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 didn’t seem inclined to talk much, and Tom would go on in such a ridiculous manner, that Polly told him she wouldn’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 didn’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 didn’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 everyone 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 people’s eyes,
and exalt the little music teacher to the rank of a young lady.

Polly scoffed at this sort of thing sometimes, but tonight she accepted it without a murmur — rather enjoyed it in fact, let
her bracelets shine before the eyes of all men, and felt that it was good to seem comely in their sight. She forgot one thing,
however, that her own happy spirits gave the crowning charm to a picture which everyone liked to see — a blithe young girl
enjoying herself with all her heart. The music and the light, costume and company, excited Polly, and made many things possible
which at most times she would never have thought of saying or doing. She did not mean to flirt; but somehow “it flirted itself,”
and she couldn’t help it, for, once started, it was hard to stop, with Tom goading her on, and Sydney looking at her with
that new interest in his eyes. Polly’s flirting was such a very mild imitation of the fashionable thing, that Trix & Co. would
not have recognized it; but it did very well for a beginner, and Polly understood that night wherein the fascination of it
lay, for she felt as if she had found a new gift all of a sudden, and was learning how to use it, knowing that it was dangerous,
yet finding its chief charm in that very fact.

Tom didn’t know what to make of her, at first, though he thought the change uncommonly becoming; and finally decided that
Polly had taken his advice, and was “setting her cap for Syd,” as he gracefully expressed it. Sydney, being a modest man,
thought nothing of the kind, but simply fancied that little Polly was growing up to be a very charming woman. He had known
her since her first visit, and had always liked the child; this winter he had been interested in the success of her plans,
and had done what he could to help them; but he never thought of falling in love with Polly, till that night. Then he began
to feel that he had not fully appreciated his young friend; that she was such a bright and lovable girl, it was a pity she
should not always be gay and pretty, and enjoy herself; that she would make a capital wife for somebody, and perhaps it
was
about time to think of settling, as his sister often said. These thoughts came and went, as he watched the white figure in
front, felt the enchantment of the music, and found everybody unusually blithe and beautiful. He had heard the opera many
times, but it had never seemed so fine before; perhaps, because he had never happened to have had an ingenuous young face
so near him, in which the varying emotions born of the music, and the romance it portrayed, came and went so eloquently, that
it was impossible to help reading them. Polly did not know that this was why he leaned down so often to speak to her, with
an expression which she did not understand, but liked very much, nevertheless.