AS Betty Pogany left the Phillips house, unconsciously she walked
faster than she ever walked unless Aunt Sarah had kept her and she was
in danger of being late for school. In that case, she teetered along
in rather absurd fashion; but to-day excitement lent her wings that
seemed to lift the weight from the high-heeled boots. She passed the
lane where the Finnemores lived without halting, though she felt a bit
troubled in that, with an hour to spare before tea-time, she did not
stop to see how Tommy’s magic might be progressing. Arriving home, she
shut herself in her own chamber: and after tea, as soon as she had
washed up, she fled to the same refuge. She took some stockings with
her, and she mended them. But she walked so little that there were few
stitches to be made with darning cotton, and she had all the time she
needed for finer stitches with sewing silk.
Breakfast was an hour later on Sunday mornings, but Betty rose at
the usual week-day hour. She had waked with a thrill of expectancy
that reminded her of Christmas mornings when she was very small and
her mother was alive. In spite of the change that the morning was to
institute, she dressed more quickly than ever. And when she was ready
to go down to help Aunt Sarah with the breakfast, the sense of freedom
Mr. Meadowcroft had predicted was already sufficient to induce her to
do unconsciously something she hadn’t done in years. She ran downstairs.
Betty had been well instructed in sewing as in all domestic and
sedentary matters, and she was very clever with her needle. She had cut
off her long skirt and hemmed it neatly and it was now well above the
tops of her boots. She had also had to let it out several inches at the
waist, for she had discarded the stays which her aunt had compelled
her to adopt two years before. Neither would the leather belt meet
under the new conditions, and she substituted a soft silk sash she had
worn as a child, tying it in a graceful knot at the side. She couldn’t
determine in the small mirror above her dresser how different her
figure looked already. Naturally square and solid rather than fat, the
new, almost straight lines it took were a vast improvement over the
forced and ugly curves which the stays had induced. But she felt the
freedom, and she noticed the difference when she arranged her hair. It
was fair and abundant and ready to curl. She parted it and, drawing it
back less rigidly than commonly, braided it, and tied the end with a
ribbon that was another treasure saved from childhood. The girl never
consulted a mirror except to see if she were tidy, and she couldn’t
remember facing one with any sensation other than chagrin or at least
indifference. Now, she hardly understood the thrill she felt as she
looked wonderingly at the reflected vision with soft yellow hair waving
about a pink and white face and a thick bright plait hanging over her
shoulders to her waist. She had ripped the standing collar from her
blouse and substituted a round turnover collar and tie that took away
the primness, and when she daringly jabbed a little silver pin in the
tie, the transformation was complete. As Betty Pogany ran down the
stairs she didn’t look, as she had looked yesterday and the day before,
an overgrown young woman. She looked what she really was--a big little
girl. And if in truth she resembled a baby giant, it was an attractive,
perhaps even a charming baby giant.
At the foot of the stair, however, the girl stopped short, dismayed.
How should she ever face them--Aunt Sarah and her father? As she had
worked busily the evening before, she had been conscious of doing
something singular--something venturesome and daring; but she had been
too deeply absorbed as well as too eagerly excited to be troubled by
definite doubts. And she had fallen asleep the moment she had dropped
into bed and awakened with a thrill of expectancy. Only now it came to
her coldly that they who dance must pay the piper.
There was no question at all with regard to Aunt Sarah. She would be
utterly shocked and scandalized. She would appeal to Betty’s father,
and alas! it was only rarely that she appealed in vain. And her father
was quite equal to ordering Betty to go straight to her chamber, put up
her hair, don a long skirt (she had altered two, but the oldest one she
had she hadn’t time to touch) and wear it to church. Betty knew well
that her father was secretly mortified because of her size and that he
was often the more severe with her on that account.
She stole silently into the parlor and glanced fearfully into the large
mirror which she was wont to avoid sedulously. The image that faced
her really startled her. She hadn’t thought of anything but making her
clothing more conformable to her years and so comfortable as to allow
her to gain freedom of movement. She was amazed, confounded--indeed,
she felt almost guilty at the singular attractiveness of the result.
Even so, Betty Pogany didn’t at all see what another would have
seen--she was far prettier than she realized. But what she saw was
enough to cause her to turn away hurriedly.
As she paused on the threshold, trying to think of some ingratiating
or deprecatory remark to make to Aunt Sarah, on a sudden something
quite foreign flashed suddenly into the girl’s mind and she quite
forgot herself, her anxiety, her disguise (or her change from long
disguising), and even that wonderful sense of freedom. Perhaps the
new dressing of her hair suggested it. As she had parted it, Betty
had recollected how poor Rose’s hair had looked yesterday, and she
had wondered whether she mightn’t, next Saturday, beg Mrs. Harrow to
allow her to do Rose’s hair for her in the old becoming fashion. But
this was something far bigger and more daring, this suggestion which
flashed before her instantaneously, but with a completeness and fulness
that quite took her breath away. She felt like shouting, like singing
something stirring such as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” And when
she entered the kitchen, hugging the vision to her bosom, she was so
engrossed thereby that at first she didn’t understand the horrified
stare upon Aunt Sarah’s face.