"He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons"
is, in effect, the spirit of the "_Ah, je ris de me voir si belle_" of
"Marguerite" when she opens the casket of jewels. As we sat, the four of
us, in the dimness of the opera box--Calliope in her black silk with the
white turnovers, Hannah in her "regular brown Sunday suit," and Henry
and I, it seemed to me that Marguerite's song was really concerning the
delight of rose-pink silk. And I found myself grieving anew for the
innocent hopes that had been dissolved, immaterial as Abe Hawley's
message from the grave.
Then the curtain fell on the third act and the soft thunder of applause
spent itself and the lights leaped up. And immediately I was aware of a
conspicuously high-pitched voice at the door of the box, a voice which
carried with it some consciousness of elaborate self-possession.
"Really!" said the voice. "Of all people! My dear Hannah--and Calliope
Marsh! You butterflies--"
I looked up, and at first all that I saw was a gown which "laid smooth
down--and then all to once it'd slimpse into folds, soft as soft--and
didn't pucker nor skew nor hang wrong"; a gown that was "dressmaker
made"; a gown, in short, such as Lydia Eider "always hed on." And there
beside us stood Lydia Eider herself, wearing some exquisite, priceless
thing of pink chiffon and old lace, with a floating, glittering scarf on
her arms.
I remember that she seemed some splendid, tropic bird alight among our
nun-like raiment. A man or two, idling attendance, were rapidly and
perfunctorily presented to us--one, who was Lydia's adopted brother,
showing an amused cordiality to Henry. And I saw how the glasses were
instantly turned from pit and boxes toward her--this girl who, with
Calliope and Hannah, had been cast in one mold of prettiness and
proportion and who alone of the three, as I thought, had come into her
own.
And Lydia said:
"_Will_ you tell me how on earth Grandma Hawley came to send me a pink
silk dress to-day? You didn't know! But she did--on my honor. It came
this afternoon by the man I sent out to you, Hannah. And so decently
made--how can it have happened? Made for me too--positively I can wear
it--though nearly everything I have is pink. But how did Grandma come to
do it? And _where_ did she get it? And why--"
She talked on for a little, elaborating, wondering. But I fancy that she
must have thought us uncommonly stupid, for none of us had the faintest
suggestion to offer. We listened, and murmured a bit about the health of
Grandma Hawley, and Henry said some hesitating thanks, in which Hannah
barely joined, for the wedding gift of the rug, but none of us gave
evidence. And at last, with some gracious word, Lydia Eider left the
box, trailing her pink chiffon skirts and saying the slight good-by
which utterly forgets one.
But when she had gone, Calliope laughed, softly and ambiguously and
wholly contagiously, so that Hannah, whose face had begun to pucker like
a child's, unwillingly joined her. And then, partly because of Henry's
reassuring, "Now then, now then, Hannah," and partly at the touch of
his big hand and in the particular, delicious embarrassment which comes
but once, Hannah tremulously spoke her conclusion:
"I don't care," she said, "I don't care! I'm _glad_--for Gramma."
Calliope sat smiling, looking, in her delicate color and frailty and the
black and white of her dress, like some one on a fan, exquisitely and
appropriately painted.
"I was thinking," she said brightly to Hannah, "going without a thing is
some like a jumping tooth. It hurts you before-hand, but when it's gone
for good all the hurt sort of eases down and peters out and can't do you
any more harm."
But I think they both knew that this was not all. For some way, outside
the errantry of prettiness and proportion, Calliope and Hannah too had
come into their own.
I looked at Calliope, her face faintly flushed by the unwonted hour; at
Hannah, rosy little bride; and at her adoring giant over whom some god
had cast the usual spell of wedding blushes.
Verily, I thought, would not one say there is rose pink enough in the
world for us all?
As the curtain rose again Calliope leaned toward me. "I don't believe
any dress," she said, "pink silk or any other kind, ever dressed up so
many folks's souls!"