A DRESS REFORM AND A NASSAU REUNION
Betty Wales came home one lovely afternoon in May looking very sober
indeed for her. But her face brightened instantly when she found a note
from Ethel stuck in her mirror.
"Dear little sister"--she read--
"Will you and all the Nassau girls come for an al fresco supper with
me to-morrow night? My balcony has a view of Paradise, and the sun
will be going down at six. Will you ask the others?
"Yours, in a hurry,
"ETHEL."
"How dear of her!" thought Betty, and ran out to give Madeline her
invitation and incidentally to find out what al fresco meant.
"Oh!" she sighed in great relief when Madeline had explained that it
was Italian for out-of-doors. "I thought perhaps she wanted us to come
in costume or have quotations from Shakespeare or something. I'm glad
it's nothing learned like that. Madeline, are you a junior usher?"
Madeline shook her head. "Rachel asked me, but I told her I couldn't
bother."
Betty laughed. "Junior ushering isn't generally considered a bother,
Miss Ayres. It's a great honor and a lot of fun."
"What is honor but an empty bubble?" declaimed Madeline gaily. "And I
don't see where the fun comes in. You have to stand up behind when you
usher. I'd rather sit down in front. Besides, most of commencement is
deadly dull. While you are hurrying around in the heat spoiling your
best clothes and being bored I shall go trolley-riding, or if there's
something I want to see, like the Ivy Day procession, I can hang out of
my window in a comfortable kimono----"
"You can't do that, Madeline," exclaimed Betty in horror-struck tones,
"with the campus full of mothers and men."
Madeline laughed. "No, strictly speaking I can't," she said, "because I
don't own a kimono since I gave my red silk one to the Nassau wash-lady
who admired it, and I draw the line at borrowing clothes. I should
have to borrow some, though, if I ushered. I haven't anything that
would look even presentable beside the dreams of elegance and beauty
that you people are going to wear."
Betty jumped up with a start. "Good-bye, Madeline," she said. "I must
go and tell the B's about Ethel's supper."
She found Babbie taking the wrappings off of a bulky package that the
expressman had just brought.
"I was in my wrapper when he knocked," explained Babbie cheerfully,
"and I thought of course it was Bob, because she walks just like a man,
so I said, 'Come in.' And all my bureau drawers were tumbled out on
Babe's bed. But I guess he's seen things like that before, if he's been
in Harding long. It's my junior usher dress, Betty. How these knots do
stick! And since I used my scissors to cut picture wire they won't cut
string."
With Betty's help the troublesome knots were all undone at last, and
Babbie shook out her new dress with a little sigh of satisfaction.
"Oh, it's made princess," she cried, "and see the lace! Why, it's
fairly covered. Betty, isn't my mother a darling?"
Betty gazed admiringly at the filmy, beruffled gown, with its rows
upon rows of tucking and shirring, and its dainty trimmings of hand
embroidery and real lace. "It's a perfect beauty, Babbie," she said,
"and you'll look like a beauty in it, you're so slight and dark."
Babbie, who had found a note pinned to the dress, gave a little squeal
of pleasure. "Here's a check for a hat," she said. "Mother says that
I don't need a new white hat one bit, but that considering I've lived
within my allowance I may have one. Oh, Betty, I do feel guilty about
that maid's wages. And yet the money has helped Emily Davis a lot--a
little of the money, I mean. And what could I do with a maid?" Her
eyes fell on the chaos on Babe's bed. "I wish I had one for an hour to
straighten out that mess. I shall make Babe help because I was hunting
for her history note-book when I emptied them out, and she had it all
the time herself." She turned to Betty. "What's the matter with you,
Betty Wales? You're as sober as a judge."
Betty waited a minute. "Oh, Babbie, I hate to tell you, but I do want
you to help. You know Rachel tried to pick out some of the girls to
usher who hadn't had as many good times as the rest of us, like Helen
and Lotta Gardner and that quiet Miss Ray who doesn't seem to have any
friends. They all seemed so pleased, but to-day Lotta and Miss Ray came
to her and said they'd decided they couldn't stay to commencement.
Rachel felt around and found out that the trouble was they thought
their dresses wouldn't do to usher in. They had heard that everything
was going to be so very elegant this year. And just now, while I was
down at Rachel's, Emily Davis came in and refused for the same reason.
She didn't want to spoil the grand effect, she said, with a dowdy
dress. We tried to make her think her dimity was all right, but we
couldn't."
"Well?" questioned Babbie coldly, putting out a slim hand to straighten
a fold in her new gown.
Betty hesitated. "Why, I thought that if some of us--in 'The Merry
Hearts' perhaps--should agree--I thought--oh, Babbie, of course you
want to wear it."
"Yes," said Babbie briefly, "I want to wear it. Don't you want to wear
yours?"
Betty nodded. "It's nothing so elegant as this, but it's very dear, and
it's not--not what you'd call simple. Babbie----"
"Yes."
"Do you know, I think Rachel is worrying about her own dress. She
wouldn't admit it, but she brought it out to show me, and it's very
plain and it's been washed a lot of times. You know she and Christy
walk at the head of the Ivy Day procession, in front of the senior
president and vice-president. Of course Christy will have a lovely
dress and the seniors' officers are both wealthy girls. Rachel said she
hoped her class wouldn't be ashamed of her."
Babbie picked up the box her dress had been packed in. There were big
bunches of purple violets all over it, and a faint scent of violets
exhaled from it as she gave it a vigorous toss to the further corner of
her long room.
"What an idea!" she said. "We ashamed of Rachel Morrison!"
She swept up her new dress and hung it out of sight in the remotest
depths of her closet.
"There!" she said, coming back to sit once more on the couch. "I can
wear it down to dinner some night, I suppose, so that mother won't
notice it's never been on. I shouldn't like to hurt her feelings. And
now the question is shall I look worse in a white duck suit that I wore
mornings last year or in an organdy that the washwoman ironed so that
it's halfway up to my knees across the front and lies on the floor
everywhere else. I think myself I should look more like the fair Miss
Gardner in the organdy."
"Oh, Babbie, don't!" begged Betty. "Please don't feel that way. Nobody
wants us to look like frumps. I only thought it would be a splendid
thing if we should agree to wear dresses more like what any girl in the
class could afford to have. But don't do it unless you want to, Babbie."
Babbie kicked the fringe of the couch cover savagely with her shiny,
high-heeled slipper. "I don't want to, Betty Wales," she declared. "I
shan't pretend that I want to, but--oh, you queer old Power behind the
Throne!" She leaned forward, scattering the pillows right and left, and
enveloped Betty in a riotous hug. "I might just as well do what you
say first as last. The reason why you get what you want when the rest
of us can't is because you always want the right kind of things. It is
absurd, of course, to have such expensive dresses when they're almost
sure to be trampled on in the crowd and ruined the first time we wear
them, and it's mean too, I suppose, if it hurts people's feelings. So
here goes for the simple life!" Babbie sent one shiny slipper flying
after the violet-scented box.
"Oh, Babbie, you are a dear!" Betty's eyes sparkled with pleasure. "If
you and Christy and Nita and Alice Waite and a few of the others who
always have pretty clothes will agree to it, why it will spread, I
know."
"And Jean Eastman, who probably won't agree to it, because she didn't
think of it first, will find herself out in the cold where she
belongs," remarked Babbie affably. "And now the question still is how
to dress for the part of Miss Simplicity. What shall you wear, Betty?"
"Why, all my thin things faded so in the sun down at Nassau that they
are frights," Betty explained. "I thought it would be fun to make a
dress, Babbie."
Babbie looked dubious for a moment and then her face cleared. "It might
be fun enough," she said, "if---- Oh, I know what! Seven dollars isn't
too much to spend, is it? I have just that much now, and I'll risk a
pound of Huyler's on it, Betty Wales, that I can make a better-looking
dress for seven dollars than you can."
"All right," agreed Betty laughingly. "And of course you understand,
Babbie, that we mustn't explain we're doing it on account of any
particular girls, but just on general principles. I'll tell Rachel to
see that the right ones hear about it."
"Of course," assented Babbie, who was hurrying into a shirt-waist.
"I'm not to inform the fair Miss Gardner that I'm trying to look like
her second cousin. I'll remember. Go and tell Babe, Betty. She's down
in Christy's room. And as soon as I'm dressed we'll go and buy the
things. Bob's clothes are always frights, no matter what they cost, so
it's no use bothering with her."
Christy received Betty's suggestion with hearty approval. "We certainly
want to keep Harding College so that every girl, no matter who she
is, can enjoy it," she said. "And the only way to do that is to keep
clothes in the background and brains and real good times in front."
She would wear a simple muslin,--"It's really a lot more becoming than
the other fussed up one," she confessed, laughingly,--and she promised
to see Nita and half a dozen others who would be at the committee
meeting she was just hurrying off to. Babe joined the shopping
expedition, insisting that her dress should enter the competition with
Betty's and Babbie's. "Only I shall hire the buttonholes done," she
declared. "I can't make buttonholes fit to be seen at the commencement
of a cat's orphan asylum."
It was surprising how many junior ushers were down-town that afternoon
and how eagerly most of them took up with "the simple life," as Babbie
called it. A good many were pleased to be asked to join a movement
headed by Christy, Betty and the rich and exclusive Babbie Hildreth,
who gave it just the stamp that Betty had counted on in asking her
coöperation. Others were relieved to find that an elaborate new dress
would not be needed. A few of course declared that the seniors would be
disappointed and 19-- disgraced if the ushers appeared in "duds." But
these last were so hopelessly in the minority that they could safely be
ignored.
"Besides, they'll come around fast enough when they find out who's for
the simple life," said Babe decidedly. "As for the seniors, they'll
be mighty sorry that they didn't set a precedent for inexpensive
commencement dresses. I tell you 19-- is such a fine class that what it
says goes."
"What Betty says goes, you mean," corrected Babbie, patting her bundle
of lace and lawn.
"Please don't," begged Betty. "I didn't do any more than the rest of
you. And that reminds me that I haven't told you but half of what I
came to your room to say."
Babbie made an imploring gesture. "Please don't. I can't be nice
about anything more just now."
[Illustration: THE NASSAU PARTY MEET BY MARY'S HAMMOCK]
"Oh, I don't want you to be," Betty assured her solemnly. "This is
another kind of thing altogether." Whereupon she was allowed to deliver
Miss Hale's invitation.
* * * * *
The Nassau party met by Mary's hammock under the apple-trees, which
were now fast losing their freight of snowy blossoms, and walked up
to Ethel's together. On the way they argued good-naturedly over the
possibility of their hearing anything about the romance.
"I'm afraid there isn't any to hear about now," said Mary, sadly. "But
it certainly had a beautiful start."
"Start, did you say?" demanded Madeline with an irritating smile.
"Yes, I did," returned Mary, calmly. "I don't see how you can possibly
deny that for two people who barely knew each other before, they got
along amazingly fast. I shan't argue any more about particular cases,
but certainly if we hadn't taken Miss Hale to Nassau, Dr. Eaton would
never have fallen in love with her. That's a romance in itself. But I
suppose you'd say that he wasn't in love."
"Oh, no, I shouldn't," returned Madeline, promptly. "Should you, Betty?"
"No, I shouldn't either," laughed Betty, thinking of the orange
blossoms and her queer interview with Dr. Eaton on shipboard. "But I
can't give my reasons against the match-making theory and Madeline
won't give hers, so let's not argue."
"Especially as it has probably all come to nothing," said Babe. "I hope
there'll be lots to eat."
It was a perfect summer evening, and the up-stairs piazza, to which
the girls were at once ushered, with its daintily spread table, its
flowers, and its view of Paradise pond and the clear gold of the sunset
sky, was so pretty that there was a chorus of delighted exclamations.
There was certainly "lots to eat," as Babe had hoped, and Ethel had not
forgotten what tastes good to college girls toward the end of spring
term. Everything was cool and crisp and as different as possible from
conventional campus fare. There was a centrepiece of ferns and a red
rose at each place, and presently it began to dawn on the girls that
everything was red and green. Strawberries on their own stems, radishes
nestled in feathery parsley, tomatoes on lettuce leaves, gave a touch
of 19--'s color, combined with the scarlet of their freshman allies,
to each course. After the parti-colored ice had been finished, and the
hostess's health drunk in lemonade (with red cherries in the bottom of
each slender green glass) there was a sudden lull in the conversation
and then Miss Hale began to speak.
"Girls," she said, looking very solemnly around the circle of eager
faces, "I asked you here to-day because I wanted to make sure of seeing
you all once more before I leave. I'm not coming back next year."
"Oh, Miss Hale----" began Mary Brooks impulsively, and paused, noticing
how sober Ethel's face was, and not daring to go on with her question.
"We shall miss you awfully--I mean the others will," she ended in some
confusion.
"Yes, indeed," said Eleanor Watson eagerly, "I shall for one."
"And I. And I," echoed the rest, while Betty Wales watched Ethel's face
and wished she had her alone to catechize.
"Ethel," she said, "you ought to have stayed until I got through. I
shan't know what to do without any grown-up person to look out for me.
I shall be just forlorn."
"Poor Betty!" said Ethel, with a very faint smile. "Won't Nan come and
see you sometimes?"
"Are you going to teach somewhere else, Miss Hale?" asked Helen Adams.
"Teach? Oh, only one private pupil, I think," said Miss Hale soberly.
"I hope you're not tired out," observed Babbie Hildreth politely.
"Oh, no, I'm not at all tired since my restful vacation," responded
Miss Hale cordially.
The girls exchanged covert glances. Nobody quite dared to put the
question that was uppermost in everybody's thought. No one could think
of any more "feelers" and there seemed to be nothing else to talk
about. So an awkward silence fell upon the circle, which Ethel, in her
capacity of hostess, made no effort to lift.
"What--what a beautiful night it is," said Mary Brooks at last in
desperation. But no one paid any attention to her, for just at that
moment Betty Wales gave a little cry of triumph.
"Ethel," she cried, "you're engaged! You're just trying to bother us by
looking so sober. I can see your lips twitch from here."
Ethel's preternaturally solemn face flashed suddenly into a radiant
smile. "I wondered how long it would take you to come to it," she said
demurely. "Yes, little sister, I'm engaged."
"There's one thing I've guessed right about," cried Betty Wales,
looking triumphantly at Mary Brooks. "Oh, Ethel, I'm so glad. I was so
afraid you didn't like him, and I think he's so nice--we all do."
Ethel laughed again. "I'm glad you approve. Are you quite sure who 'he'
is?"
"Yes," said Betty confidently, "I don't believe there is any doubt
about that."
"Oh, Miss Hale, aren't you glad you went to Nassau?" demanded Mary
Brooks, coming to the point at once in her usual energetic fashion.
Miss Hale smiled at her eagerness. "You little romancers! I suppose
you've been making up a story-book affair, with love at first sight and
moonlight in the tropics, and just reveling in it. I hate to spoil your
romance, but we've known each other since my freshman year at Harding,
and I've been this whole winter making up my mind to be engaged."
"There!" cried Madeline triumphantly.
"There!" cried Betty Wales before she thought.
Ethel looked in bewilderment from them to the others, whose faces
had fallen, and Betty came to her rescue. "It's nothing, Ethel," she
explained, "only the rest did think it all happened in Nassau, and we
thought it couldn't have. Please go on."
"Go on?" repeated Ethel uncertainly.
"Tell us how it really happened," begged Betty, "and why it seemed to
stop off short and all."
Ethel looked round the circle of eager faces. "Then you must promise
not to talk about it," she said.
"Of course," they chorused.
"We haven't said a word so far," declared Bob proudly.
"I know you haven't, and that's why I decided to tell you first of all,
but----" Ethel hesitated again. "It's so absurd. But of course you
want to know. Why, last fall when Mr. Eaton told me he was coming here
to teach, I--you can imagine how I felt--when he'd given me a year to
think it over in--to decide between my work and marrying him----"
"And then he came to watch you think?" suggested Helen Adams quaintly.
"Exactly," laughed Ethel. "That was just it, and while he watched me,
every one else would be watching both of us. I told him it was an
impossible arrangement, but it seemed impossible for him to withdraw
then, so I made him promise to leave me entirely alone and not to let
any one guess that we had known each other before."
"Oh, I see," cried Mary Brooks delightedly. "What a funny idea! And
after the Nassau trip you went back to it again?"
Ethel's dimples came into sudden play. "Yes," she said, "that was the
agreement. When I found that instead of running away from Mr. Eaton I
had taken passage on the same boat with him, we decided that the only
thing to do was to seem reasonably friendly, or else you girls would
wonder what the matter was, and then"--Ethel blushed hotly--"it was
dreadfully awkward. We were always being either too distant or too
friendly, but I couldn't explain, so I had to trust you girls not to
gossip. I knew I could. And--and that's every bit there is to tell,
little sister."
"Then Nassau did help you to make up your mind?" asked Mary, anxiously.
Ethel laughed. "Dr. Eaton says it did," she said. "He told me
particularly to thank you all for bringing me down there. But I
think--well, to tell you the truth, I think my mind was already made
up, only I didn't know it. It seems to me now that I might have decided
last summer and saved all this--this ridiculous explanation," ended
Ethel, smiling happily at her eager little audience.
Just at that moment a maid appeared with cards for Miss Hale, and "The
Merry Hearts" realized suddenly that it was time to go home.
"Remember it's not regularly announced until to-morrow night," Ethel
warned them, as they went down the steps singing,
"Here's to our Miss Hale,
May she never, never fail,"
at the top of nine vigorous lungs.
"Well," said Mary Brooks, when the tribute of song was duly paid, "the
moral of that is: appearances are deceitful, particularly when they are
meant to be deceitful. Madeline, how in the world did you find out that
they'd known each other before?"
"Dr. Eaton said he'd been to a Harding prom., and I rudely asked him
with whom," confessed Madeline.
"And how about you, Betty?"
"Oh, I had more opportunities to notice Ethel than the rest of you,"
said Betty, evasively. "I only put little things together and guessed."
She was not going to give Mary's faction a chance to crow over her, but
having heard Ethel's story, she was privately of the opinion that the
Nassau trip, though not perhaps the match-makers' devices, had helped
Ethel to decide her momentous question. "That's what was worrying her
before vacation," she reflected, "and it made her queer and changeable
on the trip. One minute she thought she was going to be married, and
the next she was afraid she wasn't. But as soon as she got back to her
beloved work she found out that she liked him best."
"Girls," piped up Helen Adams, "she said she might have one private
pupil. Do you suppose she meant Dr. Eaton?"
"Maybe she meant a Swedish maid," chuckled Babe, irreverently.
"Girls," cried Betty, stopping stock-still in the campus gateway. "If
she marries Dr. Eaton maybe she'll live here next year. We never asked
her."
"You are elected to find out at the earliest opportunity," said Mary
Brooks. "As for me, I'm going home to copy the novel. I'm going to
leave it just as it is and call it 'As It Might Have Been; or, More
Than Half True.'"
"'Less Than Half True' would be better, I think," said Madeline, "but
we won't quarrel. Girls, do you realize that every quarrel we have with
President Brooks nowadays may be our last?"