A Princess in Calico Part 2

'They are all splendid, and I'm a good deal prouder of my relations than they can be of me. I'm a regular woodp.e.c.k.e.r among birds of paradise. I wish I hadn't to be so dreadfully plain. Well, I'll ring true if I _am_ homely, and character is more than clothes, anyway.'

She undressed slowly, her aesthetic eyes revelling in all the dainty appointments of the room which was to be her very own. Then she knelt by the broad, low window-seat, and said her prayers, looking away to the stars, which glowed red, and green, and yellow, in the soft summer sky, and then, in a great hush of delight, she lay down between the delicately-perfumed sheets, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the present which G.o.d had given her. She would not think of Sleepy Hollow.

She had put it by.

_Chapter IV_

A NEW WORLD

Belle entered Pauline's room to find her cousin revelling in the exquisite pathos of Whittier's _s...o...b..und_ before dressing for dinner.

The problem of clothes had been solved by Aunt Rutha in her pleasant, tactful way.

'You are just Belle's age, my dear,' she had said the day after Pauline's arrival, as she lifted a delicately pencilled muslin from a large parcel which had been brought in from White's, and laid it against her fresh young cheek.

'That is very becoming, don't you think so, Gwen? It is such a delight for me to have two daughters to shop for. I have always had a craze to buy doubles of everything, but Gwendolyn was so much older, I could never indulge myself. There is no need to say anything, dearie,' and she kissed away the remonstrance that was forming on Pauline's lips. 'You belong to us now, you know, and your uncle thinks he owes your mother more than he can ever hope to repay.'

Then she led her to the lounge which Gwendolyn was piling high with delicately embroidered and ruffled underwear.

'I did not know whether you would like your sets to be of different patterns or not, but Belle has such a horror of having any two alike that I ventured to think that your tastes would agree. The girls are going in town to-morrow to order their summer hats, so you can finish the rest of your shopping then, if you like, and get an idea of our city.'

And then had followed a morning such as she had never dreamed of. The excitement of driving to the station in the exhilarating morning air, past houses which, like her uncle's, seemed the abodes of luxurious ease. Before many of them carriages were waiting, and through the open doors she caught glimpses of white-capped servants and coloured nurses carrying babies in long robes of lawn and lace. A vision of Polly in her pink checked gingham flashed before her. How could life be so different?

The ride in the cars was delightful, past a succession of elegant houses and beautifully laid out grounds, until she began to feel she had reached a new world where care was an unknown quant.i.ty.

Then the city, with its delightful whirl of cars and horses and people.

She had never imagined there could be so many in any one place before.

She marvelled at the condescension of the gentlemen in the handsomely appointed shoe store, and blushed as one of them placed her foot on the rest. She looked in amazement at the elegantly furnished apartments of Madame Louise, and the wonderful structures of feathers and lace and ribbon, which the voluble saleswoman a.s.sured them were cheap at thirty dollars, and was lost in a rapturous delight, as, with the calmness of experienced shoppers, her cousins went from one department to another in White's and Hovey's, laying in a supply of airy nothings of which she did not even know the use; always being treated by them with the same delicate consideration: there was nothing forced upon her, only, as they were getting things, she might as well be fitted too. Then to Huyler's for ices and macaroons, then up past St Paul's and the Common, and then home to a lunch of chicken salad and strawberries and frothed chocolate, in the cool dining-room, with its ma.s.sive leather-covered chairs and potted plants and roses.

She was growing used now to the new order of things and smiled a welcome to Belle from the velvet lounging chair in which she, Pauline Harding, who had never lounged in her life, was beginning to feel perfectly at home.

'What an inveterate bookworm you are, Paul,' and Belle looked at the pile of volumes Pauline had brought from the library to study in the long morning hours which the force of a lifelong habit gave her, before the rest of the family were astir.

'You forget I am an ignoramus,' she answered quietly. 'I must do something to catch up.'

Belle shrugged her shoulders.

'What's the use? It is surprising with what an infinitesimal fraction of knowledge one can get through this old world.'

'Such a speech from a woman in this age is rank heresy!'

'Oh, of course, if you are going in for equal suffrage and anti-opium, and the rest, but I never aspired to the garment of either Lucy Stone or Frances Willard. I _do_ pine to be an anatomist, and Professor Herschel says I have a decided talent for it too. However, papa is not progressive, at least he does not want his daughters to be, although I tell him I might be a professor in Harvard some day, so there is nothing left for me but to fall into the ranks of the majority and do nothing.'

'Why so? Is there nothing in the world but suffrage, and opium and--anatomy?'

'Oh, dear, yes, there's philanthropy, but Gwen does that for the family.

She is on every Society under the sun. Let me count them, if I can.

There's the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the Society for the Improvement of the Moral Condition of Working Women, and the Society for the Betterment of the Sanitary Conditions of Tenement Houses. She's a member of the W.C.A., and the W.C.T.U., and the S.P.C.A.; she's on the Board of Lady Managers of the Newsboys' Home, and one of the Directors of the Industrial School for Girls. In fact she is fairly torn asunder in her efforts to ameliorate the condition of the "submerged tenth."'

'"Submerged tenth,"' echoed Pauline wonderingly. 'Is any one submerged in Boston?'

'You dear stupid, of course! The unseen population in filth, rags and unrighteousness, and the rest of us in lazy self-indulgence, which, perhaps, in G.o.d's sight, is about as bad. I often think if each professing Christian took hold of one poor beggar and tried to elevate him, we should solve the problem a great deal sooner than by starting so many societies to improve them in the aggregate. I can theorize, you see, but the practice is beyond me.'

'But why don't you try it?' cried Pauline, her eyes sparkling. 'It is a splendid idea.'

'Bless you, my child, because it would involve work, and that is a thing I abhor.'

'But Gwendolyn must work on all these societies,' said Pauline.

Belle danced across the room, and seated herself on the arm of her chair.

'You dear old thing! You're as innocent as your own daisies, and it is a shame to take you from your mossy bed. Don't you know there is work and work? G.o.d says, "Go work in My vineyard," and we good Christians answer, "Yes, Lord, but let some one else go ahead and take out the stumps." The most of us like to do our spiritual farming on a western scale. It is pleasanter to drive a team of eight horses over cleared land than to grub out dockweed and thistles all alone in one corner.'

She leaned forward and began reading the t.i.tles of the books Pauline had selected for her study.

'Homer's _Iliad_ and _Plato_,--I told mamma you were intense--Hallam's _Middle Ages_ and Macaulay's _History of England_. I had no idea you had monarchical tendencies. I must take you to our little chapel, and show you the communion service that belonged to Charles the Second, or perhaps it was one of the Georges, I'm not very clear on that point. My dear Paul, you're delicious! To think of anybody voluntarily undertaking to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with all these dry-as-dust worthies, and in summertime!'

'It is not easy for you to understand how hungry I am,' said Pauline, with a tremor in her voice. 'You have been going to school all your life.'

'Unfortunately, yes!' sighed Belle. 'But don't pine for the experience.

You will soon have enough of it. May I inquire when you expect to find time for these exhilarating researches?'

Pauline laughed.

'Between the hours of five and eight A.M.'

'Horrible!'

She faced round upon her suddenly.

'I wonder what you think of us all? You are as demure as a fieldmouse, but I know those big eyes of yours have taken our measures by this time.

Come, let us have it, "the whole truth," you know. Don't be Ananias and keep back part of the price. "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oorsels as ithers see us." I delight in revelations. Show me myself, Paul.'

Pauline hesitated for a moment, then she spoke out bravely.

'I love you all, dearly. You have been so kind! But, Belle, if I had your opportunities, I would make more of my life.'

_Chapter V_

PAULINE'S BIRTHRIGHT