I am here at last, accompanied by two large leather trunks, which Aunt
Gwendolin has filled with all sorts of costumes, for all sorts of
occasions.
A page opened the door in response to the hackman's ring, when after
some hours' journey by rail, I arrived at the fashionable "Boarding
School," and a maid conducted me up a flight of softly carpeted steps to
my appointed rooms.
I had not more than taken off my wraps, when Madam Demill (she has
declared that her name should be spelled De Mille, but it has become
corrupted in this democratic America) the head of the establishment,
called upon me. She was cold, hard, stately; a creature of whalebone and
steel as to body, and of pompadours and artificial braids as to head.
She announced after her first greeting that there was going to be a
party that evening, and she wished me to be dressed in evening costume,
and appear in the drawing-room at half past eight o'clock.
"If you would wear some of your distinctly Spanish costumes it would be
very _apropos_," she added. "I see you have the decided Spanish
complexion. I am glad you are pronounced in your nationality; it is so
much more interesting. As you did not arrive in time for dinner, a tray
shall be brought to your room with sufficient refreshment to keep you in
good feature until you partake of the refreshment offered at the party,"
she added as she swept from the room.
How helpless I felt! I was to dress in evening costume for the "party."
What was I to put on? For the first time in my life I wished that Aunt
Gwendolin were near me. How I longed for my yellow silk gown that my
governess in China had designed with flowing sleeves trimmed with
"sprawling dragons!" I knew I looked better in that than in anything
else, and I knew how to put it on; no infinitesimal hooks and eyes, pins
and buttons, to be found, and put in exact places; which if one fails to
do in the American gown the whole thing goes awry.
My worry was dispelled by the arrival of the maid with the promised
tray. It was not too heavily laden to prevent me from completely
emptying it, with the exception of the dishes.
While I was eating the maid unpacked my trunks,--you have not got to do
much for yourself in a fashionable boarding school--hanging the articles
in an adjoining clothes closet. During the same period of time a happy
thought occurred to me.
"I will call Aunt Gwendolin over the long distance telephone and ask her
what I shall wear at the party to-night!" was the happy inspiration.
In response to my request the maid conducted me to the telephone, and
when the connection was made, I called:
"Hello, Aunt Gwendolin! This is the Yellow Pearl speaking!"
"How does that little minx know that she is the yellow peril?" I heard
my aunt say, probably to Uncle Theodore in the room beside her. Then she
turned to me and replied:
"Well."
"What gown shall I wear to-night at the party?"
Back over the two hundred miles of field, forest, lake, came Aunt
Gwendolin's thin, squeaky voice:
"Wear your cream-coloured Oriental lace."
"Does it fasten in the front or back? If in the back I cannot put it on
myself!" I returned, over the fields and trees and waters.
"Yes, you _can_, get some of the girls to fasten it for you," cried the
voice through the phone. "Be sure and wear _that_; it so emphasises your
Spanish style of beau----"