MRS. PHILLIPS rushed into her brother’s room in unwonted excitement.
“Humphrey, look quick! Bouncing Bet is going by, and--_will_ you see
her! Did you ever see the like of that?”
“I saw her Monday morning, Isabel,” Meadowcroft returned quietly. “And
I have noticed her a number of times since. It is certainly a singular
change. It’s a genuine transformation.”
“Rather a pity, it seems to me,” Mrs. Phillips rejoined a bit sharply,
for she felt he approved. “She was of the real peasant type, with
broad shoulders and hips and compressed waist, and might better, in my
opinion, have remained true to type. Now she looks like--anyone.”
“Isabel, you are truly absurd, talking about peasant types in America,
especially in this country village where your husband grew up and went
barefoot after the cows and then milked them,” her brother returned
warmly. “There isn’t a child in South Paulding, so far as I know, that
isn’t as American as you or I; and I fancy Betty Pogany’s forbears are
quite as respectable as ours. And if you’re talking about types, that
girl is nearer the Greek marble type than the peasant. I felt something
monumental in her, also, when I talked to her, something essentially
noble. Well--we shall see.” And Humphrey Meadowcroft sighed.
Mrs. Phillips resented the sigh, or the cause of it. She was fond of
her brother and felt assured that if he would only become a genuine
member of her household, instead of an alien dwelling under her roof,
he would be better occupied than by a quixotic interest in stupid
children which made him low-spirited. For herself, she never sighed in
that manner--as if it hurt.
“Brother, let me tell you something for your own good. Stick to
little Finnemore,” she said lightly. “He’s grubby, but there is
something rather taking about the youngster for all that. On the
other hand--believe me, it’s a big risk to allow anyone so heavy and
ponderous as Bouncing Bet to settle herself on your threshold. You
remember the kind-hearted traveler who invited the camel into his tent?”
Meadowcroft smiled vaguely. He scarcely heard what his sister was
saying. He was marveling to see Betty Pogany making her rapid way
up the street toward the corner beyond which the Harrows lived--it
was Saturday, and Tommy had told him that Betty always visited her
former schoolmate on the afternoon of her holiday. The girl was fairly
striding. She went easily, lightly and even gracefully, too, with
all her speed,--he could almost see in her a Greek Victory blown by
the wind. It wasn’t that the change was marvelous in itself. It was
perfectly simple and natural. The wonder was that it should have come
about so quickly--instantaneously, it would seem--and that a shy
child like Betty should exhibit no self-consciousness. When she had
passed the house on Monday at noon (Meadowcroft had missed her in the
morning, for she had gone early with her father that he might get her
some sensible shoes) she had been as unconcerned and unself-conscious
as if nothing had happened--as if she had always been a picturesque,
graceful, rather charming, big little girl.
There was an explanation, however, and a very good one. Had Mr.
Meadowcroft known the nature of Betty Pogany’s errand to-day he might
have guessed the answer to the riddle immediately. It was that vision
of Sunday morning that had flashed upon her and had dwelt with her all
through the week. For six days, the girl had trodden on air, buoyed by
the consciousness of that secret vision. In her absorption therein,
she had so completely forgotten herself that she had fallen, almost
unawares, into habitudes which must otherwise only have been acquired
slowly and with repeated, perhaps painful effort. Upborne by the
vision, stimulated by the adventure of it, Betty had dropped her husk
of maturity as easily as a snake sloughs his skin, and, freed from the
fetters of constraint and convention, had appeared naturally and almost
unconsciously as the girl of twelve she really was. Only when she was
reminded by Aunt Sarah’s resentful silence at home or some remark from
her schoolmates, or a chance glance in the mirror (she still avoided
mirrors by second nature) did Betty remember herself. Otherwise the
vision wholly monopolized her.
Tommy had scarcely seen her all the week and had begged her to come
in on Saturday afternoon to see him do the wonderful trick with the
bottom of a glass bottle. Mr. Meadowcroft’s Herbie had collected over
three dozen bottles, and as soon as his father should let him off from
his Saturday morning chores Tommy was to begin on them, and he would
be ready for her at any time after dinner. Betty decided to go to him
first. All eagerness as she was to get away, her rigid training and
her unselfishness sustained her. She listened sympathetically to a tale
of thirty-odd failures and of Tommy’s trouble with his father because
of the amount of broken glass in the woodshed, and watched with her
wonted hopeful interest a substitute trick he tried to perform. It
wasn’t successful, and she agreed with Tommy that picking up broken
glass had spoiled the sensitiveness of his hands for that day. But she
gently refused to wait to see him try again, rushed down to the shop
on an errand for Aunt Sarah, and, when Mr. Meadowcroft saw her and
marveled, was hastening to her real journey’s end.
When Mrs. Harrow opened the door, Betty’s eyes shone so deeply and
her cheeks glowed so rosily, that in other circumstances that lady
must have wondered. But she hadn’t seen the girl since the preceding
Saturday, and there was something far more striking and startling to
discover about her than shining eyes and glowing cheeks. She stared
at her in utter amazement, her face, which, since Rose’s illness,
had taken on a seemingly permanent expression of half-fretful,
half-despairing anxiety, becoming void for the nonce of all save sheer
wonderment.
“Why, Betty Pogany!” she cried. Then she recollected herself and
dropped her voice to the hushed, sepulchral half-whisper which had
become habitual with her and which seemed to Betty to-day worse than
ever before. “What does this mean--your hair down and a short skirt
and--you have left off---- I suppose it is just a Saturday afternoon
frolic, but I wonder your aunt let you come out in the street so.”
“O no, it isn’t just for to-day, it’s for always--or until I am really
grown-up,” Betty returned in her clear, sweet voice, which she did not
lower though Mrs. Harrow’s finger flew quickly to her lips in warning.
“I’m going to wear my hair in a tail and my skirts like this till I’m
seventeen or eighteen; and father’s forbidden me to wear corsets.”
Mrs. Harrow looked at the girl as if she believed she was out of her
head and was wondering whether she was dangerous.
“How is Rose?” Betty asked eagerly.
“About the same,” whispered Mrs. Harrow lugubriously. “Don’t say
anything to her, Betty about--your clothes, you know, and your hair.
You won’t, will you?”
“But, Mrs. Harrow, why not? What’s the harm?” the girl asked eagerly.
And Mrs. Harrow stared harder than before.
“Why, Betty Pogany! to think of your asking that! I have always thought
I could trust you just like an older person,” Mrs. Harrow whispered
reproachfully, her eyes round and shocked. “You ought to know yourself
that it would make Rose feel terribly, for you know how I try to keep
her from thinking of old times.”
“But, Mrs. Harrow, what _can_ she think of?” the girl asked warmly.
“She’s got to think of something, Rose has, and there isn’t anything
but old times, is there, unless you let me talk about things going on
now?”
“She can think about the book I’m reading to her,” declared Rose’s
mother severely. “It is sweet and soothing and--I think, Betty, you had
just better go right on with it to-day instead of talking or singing.
If you talk--your voice is different and I am sure it would excite
her. And if you come to anything in the book that you think would
excite her, just leave it out. But be very careful about it. Don’t
stop or let her dream that you’re skipping anything. Rosy’s so nervous
that----”
“Mama!” called Rose fretfully from the room beyond the passage, “why
doesn’t Betty come in?”
“Poor darling, she’s very suspicious lately,” whispered Mrs. Harrow,
and hurried Betty in.
“Betty had to stop in the entry a minute to--to fix something,” she
explained nervously. “She came as soon as--it was all right, Rosy
darling. I suppose it did seem long.”
“But, mama, what were you saying all that time?” demanded the
hollow-eyed girl querulously. “I heard you whispering and whispering
and whispering.”
Mrs. Harrow glanced at Betty in dismay, but she answered hurriedly.
“O, I wasn’t whispering, Rosy, but I suppose my voice was husky because
of reading so long, and we were only talking about how people don’t
half sew braid on skirts nowadays,” she said glibly, the while Betty’s
eyes grew round with an amazement that was almost horror. “You know,
darling, Betty being such a great girl and wearing long dresses has to
have braid on the bottom of her skirt just as ladies do.”
Deeply shocked by such duplicity in one whom she had always respected,
Betty dropped weakly into a chair. But her spirit did not fail her. And
when Mrs. Harrow began to point at the open book, puckering her lips
and grimacing grotesquely, though the girl knew what she meant, she
wouldn’t respond. Mrs. Harrow, however, was equal to the occasion.
“What’s that, Betty?” she asked, affably rhetorical. “O--that book? I’m
reading it to Rosy and it is very sweet, indeed. I want just to run out
and do my marketing before Mr. Harrow gets back, and if you want to
go on with the book while I’m gone, I sha’n’t feel rushed. Page 63 is
where I stopped. See, right there. You might just read that sentence
over to get a good start.”
Betty took the book and read the sentence in docile fashion. She went
on quietly and Mrs. Harrow, after standing on the threshold a few
moments, left the room. Betty read steadily until she heard the gate
slam to. Then she stopped in the midst of a sentence.