A SEMI-ANNUAL OCCURRENCE
"Father Davy, the 'Semi-Annual' has come!" Georgiana, tugging with both
strong young arms, hauled the big express package into the living-room
of the old manse, and shut the door with a bang. Breathing rapidly from
her exertions, her cheeks warmly flushed, her dark eyes glowing, she
stood over the package, looking at her father with a curious sort of
smile not wholly compounded of joy and satisfaction.
"That is very good," said Father Davy in his pleasant voice; "and very
opportune. It was but yesterday, it seems to me, that I heard daughter
declaring that she was 'Oh, so shabby!'"
"Yes, yes--but what do you wager there is there?" questioned Georgiana.
"I can tell you before I take the cover off. Three evening gowns,
frivolous and impossible for a little town like this; one draggled
lingerie frock, two evening coats, and possibly--just possibly--a last
year's tailored suit, with a tear in the front of the skirt and not a
scrap of goods to make a fold to cover it. Why, oh, why, do they never
have any pieces?"
"The reason seems obvious enough," Mr. Warne suggested, as the girl
stooped and began to wrestle with the cords which tied the big package.
His glance fell musingly on the down-bent head with its masses of
dark-brown hair, upon the white and shapely arms from which the sleeves
were rolled back,--Georgiana had been busy in the kitchen when the
expressman came,--upon the whole comely young figure in its blue-print
morning dress. "They never have need of the pieces, I should judge,"
said he.
"But I have. Jeannette might think of me when she orders her clothes,
not just when her maid is packing the box with a lot of castaways. Well,
here's hoping there's just one thing I can use," and she lifted the
cover of the box and looked within, it cannot be denied, with eager
curiosity.
"There are always many things you can use," her father gently reminded
her; "you, who are so ingenious."
"Here's the evening frock!" cried his daughter, lifting out the top
garment and holding it up before them both. "Oh, what a dress to send a
poor country cousin! Fluff and flimsy, trimmed with sparklers; cut
frightfully low, no sleeves, and a draggly train. Doesn't it look
suitable for me?" She flung it aside with a gesture of scorn. "Ah,
here's something a shade better! A little dancing frock of
rose-coloured chiffon--and her clumsy partner stepped on the hem of it.
The maid in the dressing-room sewed it up for her to have her last dance
in, and then she came home and threw it into the box for me. Well, I can
get a gorgeous motor veil out of it--I who have so many drives in the
cars of the rich!"
"The--the under part looks available to me," suggested Mr. Warne,
striving to be of comfort.
Georgiana shrugged her blue-clad shoulders. "Oh, yes, if I could dress
in slitted silk petticoats and you could wear them for dressing-gowns,
we'd have plenty. Well, look at _this_! Here's a velvet--cerise! What a
glorious, impossible colour! And here's the lingerie frock; that's not
so bad; I really think it will stand a couple of launderings before it
falls to pieces in my hands. And here's the evening coat--pale gray with
fox trimmings--and she's fallen foul of some ink or something, and the
cleaner couldn't get it all out. Father Davy, look!"
"It seems to me," said Mr. Warne in his gentle tones, which were yet not
without more firmness than one might expect from so frail a person,
"that I have heard somewhere a homely proverb to the effect that it is
not quite in good taste to----"
"'_Look a gift horse in the mouth,_'" finished Georgiana. Her eyes were
rebellious. "And there's another: '_Beggars mustn't be choosers._' Yes,
I know. Only, semi-annually I certainly do experience a burning wish
that my dear rich relations were persons with a trifle keener sense of
discernment as to which of their old clothes would be most appreciated
by their poor cousins. They must now and then, Father Davy, wear
something sensible. They must have morning clothes and street
clothes--adorable ones. Why do they send only the worldly clothes to the
manse? And why--_why_ do they never put in so much as one of Uncle
Thomas's discarded cravats for the Little Minister himself?"
"Your Uncle Thomas and I may possibly have different tastes in the
matter of neckwear," replied Mr. Warne with such gravity of manner but
such a sparkle of humour in his blue-gray eyes that his daughter laughed
in spite of herself. "Come, come, dear, is there nothing you can approve
among all those rich materials? You might make me innumerable cravats,
and I am such a fop I could wear a fresh one each day--to please you."
"Father Davy!" Georgiana sat back on her heels. She had slipped her
bared arms into the armholes of the sleeveless white "fluff-and-flimsy"
evening frock, and the "sparklers" of the low-cut bodice now framed her
blue-print clad shoulders with an astonishing effect of incongruity. "I
have a wonderful inspiration. Let's ask Jeannette out here for a
visit--an object-lesson as to the state of life whereunto the country
cousins have been called. She hasn't seen me in ten years, and all I
remember of her is a fluffy, yellow-haired girl with a sniffly cold in
her head. What do you say, Father Davy? Shall we ask her?"
Her father's gaze, quiet, comprehending, more than a little amused, met
Georgiana's, audacious, defiant, mischievous, yet reasonable. The two
looked at each other for a full minute.
"Do you think she would come?" Mr. Warne inquired doubtfully.
"Why shouldn't she come? She's had a gay winter so far, but not a happy
one. She's no debutante any more, you know; she's an 'old girl' in her
fifth season. That's what the society girls get by coming out at
eighteen. Now I, who am only a year out of college and who never 'came
out' in my life, am as keen at the game of being grown up as if I were
just putting up my hair for the first time. Well, Jeannette's been
keeping up the pace all winter, is thoroughly worn out and unhappy, and
doesn't know what to do with herself. It's March--and Lent--the time of
year when the society folks betake themselves to spring resorts to
recover their shattered nerves. Don't you think she'd jump at the chance
to come to the little country town and try what our air and our cookery
would do for her?"
"You seem to know all about her in spite of not having seen or known
her--except through these boxes of clothes--since she was a little
girl."
"Ah, that's just it--through her boxes--that's how I know her!"
Triumphantly Georgiana held up the cerise velvet gown. "Don't I know a
girl who would wear that? Wild for excitement--that's why she chose the
colour. But she didn't get the fun she expected; he didn't like it--or
somebody said she looked too pale in it--and she fired it at me before
she had done more than take the freshness off. _I_ can wear it--see
here!"
She got to her feet, untied the little black silk tie which held the
low-rolling collar of her working dress at the throat, unfastened a row
of hooks, and let the blue print slip to her feet. Over the glory of her
white shoulders and gleaming arms she flung the cerise velvet--gorgeous,
glowing, wonderful colour, as trying to the ordinary complexion as
colour can well be. But as the gown fell into place, and Georgiana,
backing up to her father, was fastened somewhat tentatively into it, it
would have been plain to any beholder that if the rich girl could not
wear the queenly, daring robe the poor girl could--as she had said.
She swept up and down the room, her head held high. She played the part
of a lady of fashion and held an imaginary reception, carrying on a
stream of "society" talk with a manner which made the pale man on the
couch laugh like a boy. Holding a dialogue with a hypothetical male
guest, she led him out into the hall, still within sight of Mr. Warne's
couch, and was in the midst of a scene as inspiredly clever as anything
she had ever done at college, where she had been the pride of a dramatic
club whose fame had waxed greater than that of any similar organization
for many years, when the front door of the house suddenly opened, and a
gust of chilly March air rushed in with the person entering.
Georgiana wheeled--to find herself confronting the amused gaze of her
boarder, Mr. E. C. Jefferson, as read the address upon his mail.
Mr. Jefferson was by this time, after a month under the roof of the old
manse, well established as a member of the household, though after the
somewhat remote fashion to be expected of a man whose absorbing work
filled most of his waking hours. He closed the door quickly as he caught
sight of Georgiana in her masquerade, removed his hat, and bent his head
before the cerise velvet.
Georgiana, blushing as vividly as if it were the first time mortal man
had ever beheld her pretty shoulders, threw him a laughing look,
murmured: "Dress parade in borrowed finery, Mr. Jefferson; don't let the
blaze of colour put your eyes out!" and retreated toward the living-room
where her father sat, much amused by the situation.
She was followed by her boarder's reply: "I find myself still happily
retaining the use of my eyes, Miss Warne. You need not be too much in
haste; it is very dull outside, I assure you."
He went on up the stairs, but she had caught his smile, momentarily
illumining a face which was ordinarily rather grave. Georgiana closed
the living-room door upon the sight of the lithe figure rapidly
ascending the staircase without a glance behind. As she faced her father
she assumed the expression of a merry child caught in mischief.
"Our new lodger has certainly come upon me in all sorts of situations,
not to mention disguises," she remarked, "but this is the first time he
has met me in the role of leading lady on the melodramatic stage. Please
unhook me, Father Davy; the play is over, and it's time to get the
pot-roast simmering. And what do you say to inviting lovely Jeannette
Crofton to visit us? Would it be too hard on you?"
"Not at all, my dear. I should be glad to see your Uncle Thomas's
daughter. Invite her, by all means. You have far too little young
companionship; it will do you good to have a girl of your own age in the
house."
"I wonder how we shall get on," mused Georgiana. "Anyhow she'll see what
a market this is for evening frocks cut on her lines!"