A MODERN CINDERELLA
"Let's take a cab to the station. The roads are awfully wet still, and
I'll ruin my shoes," suggested Alma. The little family were at
breakfast, Nancy and Alma hastily swallowing their coffee so that they
could hurry off to the station. After the fit of autumn wind and rain,
another summer day had come, with a glistening sunlight which was doing
its best to cheer up the drooping flowers in the tiny garden.
"We don't need a cab. What are you talking about?" replied Nancy,
glancing out of the window. "It's a wonderful day, and we don't have
to make for all the puddles on the way to the station like ducks. By
the way, don't let me forget to stop at the bank. I dare say I ought
to take some money with me in case we can't get just what we want at
Frelinghuysen's. How much do you think we should have, Mother?"
"Seventy-five dollars ought to be enough," said Mrs. Prescott vaguely,
after a moment's calculation. Nancy whooped.
"Seventy-five! Good gracious--why, if I spend a cent over forty, we'll
have to live on bread and water for the rest of the month!"
"Well, just as you think, dear--you know best, of course," Mrs.
Prescott answered absently. "You two had better be starting. I wish
you would get Alma a new hat while you're in town, Nancy. I don't
quite like that one she has--it doesn't go with her suit."
Nancy pushed her chair back from the table.
"I'll trot out and see Hannah a moment. We have about thirty-five
minutes, Alma."
It took them twenty minutes to walk to the station. Alma was in high
spirits, Nancy still thoughtful. But the wind was up and out, tossing
the trees, rippling the puddles, which reflected a clear, sparkling
sky, and the riotous, care-free mood of the morning was infectious.
As the train sped through the open country, passing stretches of
yellowing fields, clusters of woodland and busy little villages, Alma
chattered joyously:
"Aren't you awfully glad about the party, Nancy? Don't you think we
can go to a matinee--it's such a deliciously idle, luxurious sort of
thing to do! I'm going to have chicken patties for luncheon, and lots
of that scrumptious chocolate icecream that's almost black. Don't you
love restaurant food, Nancy? It's such fun to sit and watch the
people, and wonder what they are going to do after luncheon, and what
they are saying to each other, and where they live. When I'm married I
shall certainly live in town, and I'll have a box at the opera, and
I'll carry a pair of those eye-glasses on jewelled
sticks--what-do-you-call-'ems--and every morning I'll go down-town in
my car and shop, and then I'll meet my husband for luncheon at Sherry's
or the Plaza."
"Of course you'll have a country-place on Long Island," suggested
Nancy, with good-natured irony, which Alma took quite seriously.
"Oh, yes. With terraces and Italian gardens. I _would_ love to be
seen standing in a beautiful garden, with broad marble steps, and rows
of poplar trees, and a sun-dial----"
"For whose benefit?"
"Oh, my own."
"We're feeling rich to-day, aren't we?"
"Well, I don't know anything that feels better than to be going to buy
a new dress. Shall we get the hat too, Nancy?"
"What do you think?"
Alma hesitated.
"Well, I suppose we'd better wait. It's funny how when you start
spending money at all you want to get everything under the sun. Of
course, girls like Elise or Jane _do_ get everything they want----"
"Exactly. And when you're with them you feel that you must let go,
too. And if you can't afford it----" Nancy shrugged her shoulders,
and Alma finished for her:
"It makes you miserable."
"Or else," said Nancy, with a curl of the lip, "or else, if you aren't
bothered with any too much pride, you'll do what that Margot Cunningham
does. She simply camps on the Porterbridges. Elise is so good-natured
that she lets Margot buy everything she likes and charge it to her, and
Margot finds life so comfy there that she can't tear herself away. I'd
rather work my fingers to the bone than take so much as a pair of
gloves given to me out of good-natured charity!" Nancy's eyes
sparkled. Alma was silent. There were times when Nancy's fierce,
stubborn pride frightened her--sometimes the way her sister's lips
folded together, and her small, cleft chin was lifted, made her fancy
that there might be a resemblance between Nancy and old Mr. Prescott.
Alma was the butterfly, and Nancy the bee; the butterfly no doubt
wonders why the bee so busily stores away the honey won by thrift and
industry, and, in all probability, the bee reads many a lesson to the
gay-winged idler who clings to the sunny flower. But to-day the bee
relented.
"Now, ma'am, consider yourself the owner of unlimited wealth," said
Nancy, as they swung briskly into the concourse of the Grand Central
Station. "You're a regular Cinderella, and _I'm_ your godmother, who
is going to perform the stupendously brilliant, mystifying act of
turning twenty rolls of sitting-room wall-paper, and three coats of
brown paint into--five yards of superb silk, two silver slippers, two
silk stockings, and three yards of silver ribbon; or, one simple
country maiden into a fashionable miss of entrancing beauty."
"Nancy, you're the most angelic person!" squealed Alma. "But aren't
you going to get yourself something, too? It makes me feel awfully
mean to get new things when you have to wear that dowdy old yellow
thing."
"Dowdy, indeed. It's grand. 'Miss Nancy Prescott was charming in a
simple gown of mousseline-de-soie, which hung in the straight lines now
so much in vogue. Her only ornaments were a bouquet of rare flowers,
contrasting exquisitely with the shade of her frock,--a toilette of
unusual chic. Miss Alma Prescott, Melbrook's noted beauty, was superb
in a lavish creation'--You're going to be awfully lavish, and quite the
belle of the ball."
"You ought to have some new slippers, Nancy--a pair of gold ones would
absolutely _make_ your dress."
"My black ones are all right. I'll put fresh bows on them," said
Nancy, firm as a Trojan outwardly, though within her resolution
wavered. Dared she take another seven dollars? She began to feel
reckless.
"Are you waited on, madam?" The smooth voice of a saleswoman roused
her from her calculations.
"We want to see some blue taffeta--not awfully expensive."
"Step this way. We have something exquisite--five dollars a yard."
"Oh, haven't you anything less than that?" stammered Nancy in dismay.
Alma glanced at her reprovingly.
"For heaven's sake, don't sound as if you hadn't a dollar to your name,
or she'll just right-about-face and walk off," she whispered. "We'll
_look_ at the expensive silk, and then work around to the
cheaper--explain that it's more what we want, and so on."
"Yes, and the cheaper silk will look so impossible after we've seen the
other that we'll be taking it," returned Nancy. "_I_ know their wiles."
"Here is a beautiful material--quite new," lured the saleswoman. "A
wonderful shade. It will be impossible to duplicate. See how it
falls--as softly and gracefully as satin, but with more body to it.
The other is much stiffer."
"How--how much is it?" asked Nancy feebly.
"Five-ninety-eight. It's special, of course. Later on the regular
price will be six-fifty."
"Isn't it _lovely_?" breathed Alma, touching the gleaming stuff with
careful fingers.
"Have--have you anything for about three dollars a yard?" asked Nancy,
wishing that Alma would do the haggling sometimes.
The saleswoman listlessly unrolled a yard or two from another bolt and
held it up.
"Is it for yourself, madam? Or for the other young lady?"
"It's for my sister. Let me hold this against your hair, Alma."
"It's not nearly so nice as the other, of course," observed Alma, in a
casual tone. "It's awfully stiff, and the color's sort of washed out.
I really think----"
"Oh, of course, this paler shade is not nearly so effective at night,"
agreed the saleswoman, pouncing keenly upon her prey. "See how
beautifully this deeper color brings out the gold in the young lady's
hair. Would you like to take it to the mirror, miss?"
"Oh, don't, Alma!" begged Nancy, in comical despair. "Of course there
isn't any comparison." She felt herself weakening. "I--I suppose this
would really wear better too."
"Of course it would," said Alma, quickly. "That other stuff is so
stiff it would split in no time."
Five times five-ninety-eight--thirty dollars. Nancy wrinkled her
forehead, but she knew that she had succumbed even before she announced
her surrender. The saleswoman, watching her, lynx-eyed, smiled. Alma
preened herself in front of the long mirror, frankly admiring herself,
with the soft, silken stuff draped around her shoulders.
"All right," said Nancy. "Give me five yards."
"Charged?" purred the saleswoman. But Nancy had no mind to have the
gray ghost of her extravagance revisit her on the first of the month.
"No, no! I'll pay for it, and take it with me." She counted out her
little roll of bills, trying not to notice the pitiable way in which
her purse shrank in, like the cheeks of a hungry man.
"Is there nothing you would like for yourself, madam?" murmured the
voice of the temptress. "Here is some ravishing charmeuse--the true
ashes-of-roses. With your dark hair and eyes----"
"Oh, no--no, thanks." Nancy clutched Alma, and turned her head away
from the shimmering, pearl-tinted fabric. For all her stiff
level-headedness, she was only human, and a girl with a healthy, ardent
longing for beautiful finery; prudent she was, but prudence soon
reaches its limits when the pressure of feminine vanity and exquisite
luxury is brought to bear upon it. There was only one course of
resistance. Nancy fled.
"Now, slippers." Alma skipped along beside her, hugging her precious
bundles, with shining eyes, and cheeks aglow. "I think I love slippers
better than anything in the world. Nancy, you're a perfect _lamb_."
They tried on slippers. Certainly Alma's tiny foot and slender ankle
was a delightful object to contemplate as she turned it this way and
that before the little mirror.
"If you had a little buckle, miss--we have some very new rhinestone
ornaments--I'd like to show you one--a butterfly set in a fan of silver
lace. Just a moment."
Before Nancy could stop her the saleswoman had gone.
"We won't get the buckles, you dear old thing," Alma said consolingly,
bending the sole of her foot. "We'll just look at them."
Nancy smiled wryly.
"I'd _like_ to get you everything in the shop--I hate to be stingy with
you, dear; it's just this old thing," and she held up the shabby purse.
"_Isn't_ that perfectly gorgeous?" shrieked Alma, as the saleswoman
held a little jewelled dragon-fly, poised on a spray of silver lace,
against her instep.
"Gorgeous," echoed Nancy.
"It's a very chic trimming--of course we use it only on the handsomer
slippers," chanted the saleswoman. "Now, we could put that on for you
in five minutes, and really the expense would be small, considering
that nothing more would be needed as an ornament, and it would be the
smartest thing to wear--no trimming on the dress whatever."
"How much would it be?" asked Alma. "I--I can't take it now, but
later----"
"The buckles are five dollars, and with the lace fan it would come to
seven. I would advise you--the prices will go up in another month----"
"Well, Alma----" Nancy hesitated, made one last frantic grasp at her
fleeting prudence and surrendered. "Fourteen dollars. All right. You
can take the buckles as a Christmas present from me. I'll pay for
those, and we'll be back for them after we've got some other things."
"Nancy, you angel! You lamb! You duck! You angelic dumpling!" crowed
Alma. "I never felt so absolutely luxurious in all my life."
"I don't imagine you ever did," remarked Nancy; she was aghast at her
own extravagance. She judged herself harshly as the victim of the
failing which she had so long combatted in her mother and sister.
Every atom of the prudence with which she had armed herself seemed to
be melting away like wax before a furnace. She had already spent
forty-four dollars, and there was still the silver ribbon to be bought,
which would bring the sum up to forty-five at the very least. She had
originally intended to buy one or two small items with which to freshen
up her own dress for the dance, but she stubbornly put aside the idea.
"Nancy, darling, aren't you going to get yourself some slippers?"
"No--I don't need them. The ones I have are quite good."
"I feel so mean, Nancy. Do you think I'm horribly selfish?"
"Selfish! You aren't the least bit selfish, dear. I can understand
perfectly how you hate to go among all those rich girls without looking
as well-dressed as any of them, when you're a thousand times prettier
than the nicest looking one of them. Besides, just this once----" She
paused, realizing that it was not a case of "just this once" at all.
Pretty, new clothes and pocket money would be the barest necessities
when they should be at Miss Leland's. Why didn't her mother see the
folly of sending them to a place where they would learn to want things,
actually to need things, far beyond the reach of their little bank
account, and where Alma, chumming with girls who had everything that
feminine fancy could desire, would either be made miserable, or--she
tried to rout her own practical thoughts. Why was it that she was so
unwilling to trust in rosy chance? Why was it always she who had to
bring the wet blanket of harsh common sense to dampen her mother's and
sister's debonair trust in a smiling Providence? Was she wrong after
all? She considered the lilies of the field, but somehow she could not
believe that their example was the wisest one for impecunious human
beings to follow. Lilies could live on sun and dew, and they had
nothing to do but wave in the wind.
"Oh, look, Nancy--aren't those feather fans exquisite----"
"Alma, don't you dare to peep at another showcase in this store, or
I'll tie my handkerchief over your eyes and lead you out blindfolded
like a horse out of a fire."
"But _do_ look at those darling little bottles of perfume. They're
straight from Paris. I can tell from those adorable boxes with the
orange silk tassels. Wouldn't you give anything on earth to have one?
When I'm rich I'm going to have dozens of bottles--those slender
crystal ones with enamel tops; and they'll stand in a row across the
top of a Louis XVI dressing-table." Nancy smiled at Alma's
ever-recurring phrase, "When I'm rich." She wondered if her butterfly
sister had formed any clear notions of how that beatific state was to
be realized.
"Alma Prescott, there's the door, and thank heaven for it. Have the
goodness, ma'am, to go directly through it. The street is immediately
beyond, and that is the safest place for us two little wanderers at
present."
Forty-five dollars for just one evening's fun.
Gold slippers would have been just the thing to wear with her yellow
dress; but--well----