An Old-fashioned Girl by Louisa M. Alcott (book club suggestions TXT) 📕

the hood, was assumed with becoming gravity and draped with much advancing and retreating before the glass, as its wearer practised the true Boston gait, elbows back, shoulders forward, a bend and a slide, occasionally varied by a slight skip. But when that bonnet went on, Polly actually held her breath till it was safely landed and the pink rose bloomed above the smooth waves of hair with what Fanny called "a ravishing effect." At this successful stage of affairs Polly found it impossible to resist the loan of a pair of gold bands for the wrists and Fanny's white fan with the little mirror in the middle.

"I can put them in my pocket if I feel too much dressed," said Polly as she snapped on the bracelets, but after a wave or two of the fan she felt that it would be impossible to take them off till the evening was over, so enticing was their glitter.

Fanny also lent her a pair of three-button gloves, which completed her content, and when Tom greeted her with an approving, "Here 's a sight for gods and men! Why, Polly, you 're gorgeous!" she felt that her "fun" had decidedly begun.

"Would n't Polly make a lovely bride?" said Maud, who was revolving about the two girls, trying to decide whether she would have a blue or a white cloak when she grew up and went to operas.

"Faith, and she would! Allow me to congratulate you, Mrs. Sydney," added Tom, advancing with his wedding-reception bow and a wicked look at Fanny.

"Go away! How dare you?" cried Polly, growing much redder than her rose.

"If we are going to the opera to-night, perhaps we 'd better start, as the carriage has been waiting some time," observed Fan coolly, and sailed out of the room in an unusually lofty manner.

"Don't you like it, Polly?" whispered Tom, as they went down stairs together.

"Very much."

"The deuce you do!"

"I 'm so fond of music, how can I help it?

"I 'm talking about Syd."

"Well, I 'm not."

"You 'd better try for him."

"I 'll think of it."

"Oh, Polly, Polly, what are you coming to?"

"A tumble into the street, apparently," answered Polly as she slipped a little on the step, and Tom stopped in the middle of his laugh to pilot her safely into the carriage, where Fanny was already seated.

"Here 's richness!" said Polly to herself as she rolled away, feeling as Cinderella probably did when the pumpkin-coach bore her to the first ball, only Polly had two princes to think about, and poor Cinderella, on that occasion, had not even one. Fanny did n't seem inclined to talk much, and Tom would go on in such a ridiculous manner that Polly told him she would n't listen and began to hum bits of the opera. But she heard every word, nevertheless, and resolved to pay him for his impertinence as soon as possible by showing him what he had lost.

Their seats were in the balcony, and hardly were they settled, when, by one of those remarkable coincidences which are continually occurring in our youth, Mr. Sydney and Fanny's old friend Frank Moore took their places just behind them.

"Oh, you villain! You did it on purpose," whispered Polly as she turned from greeting their neighbors and saw a droll look on Tom's face.

"I give you my word I did n't. It 's the law of attraction, don't you see?"

"If Fan likes it, I don't care."

"She looks resigned, I think."

She certainly did, for she was talking and laughing in the gayest manner with Frank while Sydney was covertly surveying Polly as if he did n't quite understand how the gray grub got so suddenly transformed into a white butterfly. It is a well-known fact that dress plays a very important part in the lives of most women and even the most sensible cannot help owning sometimes how much happiness they owe to a becoming gown, gracefully arranged hair, or a bonnet which brings out the best points in their faces and puts them in a good humor. A great man was once heard to say that what first attracted him to his well-beloved wife was seeing her in a white muslin dress with a blue shawl on the chair behind her. The dress caught his eye, and, stopping to admire that, the wearer's intelligent conversation interested his mind, and in time, the woman's sweetness won his heart. It is not the finest dress which does the most execution, I fancy, but that which best interprets individual taste and character. Wise people understand this, and everybody is more influenced by it than they know, perhaps. Polly was not very wise, but she felt that every one about her found something more attractive than usual in her and modestly attributed Tom's devotion, Sydney's interest, and Frank's undisguised admiration, to the new bonnet or, more likely, to that delightful combination of cashmere, silk, and swan's-down, which, like Charity's mantle, seemed to cover a multitude of sins in other people's eyes and exalt the little music teacher to the rank of a young lady.

Polly scoffed at this sort of thing sometimes, but to-night she accepted it without a murmur rather enjoyed it in fact, let her bracelets shine before the eyes of all men, and felt that it was good to seem comely in their sight. She forgot one thing, however: that her own happy spirits gave the crowning charm to a picture which every one liked to see a blithe young girl enjoying herself with all her heart. The music and the light, costume and company, excited Polly and made many things possible which at most times she would never have thought of saying or doing. She did not mean to flirt, but somehow "it flirted itself" and she could n't help it, for, once started, it was hard to stop, with Tom goading her on, and Sydney looking at her with that new interest in his eyes. Polly's flirting was such a very mild imitation of the fashionable thing that Trix & Co. would not have recognized it, but it did very well for a beginner, and Polly understood that night wherein the fascination of it lay, for she felt as if she had found a new gift all of a sudden, and was learning how to use it, knowing that it was dangerous, yet finding its chief charm in that very fact.

Tom did n't know what to make of her at first, though he thought the change uncommonly becoming and finally decided that Polly had taken his advice and was "setting her cap for Syd," as he gracefully expressed it. Sydney, being a modest man, thought nothing of the kind, but simply fancied that little Polly was growing up to be a very charming woman. He had known her since her first visit and had always liked the child; this winter he had been interested in the success of her plans and had done what he could to help them, but he never thought of failing in love with Polly till that night. Then he began to feel that he had not fully appreciated his young friend; that she was such a bright and lovable girl, it was a pity she should not always be gay and pretty, and enjoy herself; that she would make a capital wife for somebody, and perhaps it was about time to think of "settling," as his sister often said. These thoughts came and went as he watched the white figure in front, felt the enchantment of the music, and found everybody unusually blithe and beautiful. He had heard the opera many times, but it had never seemed so fine before, perhaps because he had never happened to have had an ingenuous young face so near him in which the varying emotions born of the music, and the romance it portrayed, came and went so eloquently that it was impossible to help reading them. Polly did not know that this was why he leaned down so often to speak to her, with an expression which she did not understand but liked very much nevertheless.

"Don't shut your eyes, Polly. They are so full of mischief to-night, I like to see them," said Tom, after idly wondering for a minute if she knew how long and curly her lashes were.

"I don't wish to look affected, but the music tells the story so much better than the acting that I don't care to look on half the time," answered Polly, hoping Tom would n't see the tears she had so cleverly suppressed.

"Now I like the acting best. The music is all very fine, I know, but it does seem so absurd for people to go round telling tremendous secrets at the top of their voices. I can't get used to it."

"That 's because you 've more common-sense than romance. I don't mind the absurdity, and quite long to go and comfort that poor girl with the broken heart," said Polly with a sigh as the curtain fell on a most affecting tableau.

"What's-his-name is a great jack not to see that she adores him. In real life we fellows ain't such bats as all that," observed Tom, who had decided opinions on many subjects that he knew very little about, and expressed them with great candor.

A curious smile passed over Polly's face and she put up her glass to hide her eyes, as she said: "I think you are bats sometimes, but women are taught to wear masks, and that accounts for it, I suppose."

"I don't agree. There 's precious little masking nowadays; wish there was a little more sometimes," added Tom, thinking of several blooming damsels whose beseeching eyes had begged him not to leave them to wither on the parent stem.

"I hope not, but I guess there 's a good deal more than any one would suspect."

"What can you know about broken hearts and blighted beings?" asked Sydney, smiling at the girl's pensive tone.

Polly glanced up at him and her face dimpled and shone again, as she answered, laughing: "Not much; my time is to come."

"I can't imagine you walking about the world with your back hair down, bewailing a hard-hearted lover," said Tom.

"Neither can I. That would n't be my way."

"No; Miss Polly would let concealment prey on her damask cheeks and still smile on in the novel fashion, or turn sister of charity and nurse the heartless lover through small-pox, or some other contagious disease, and die seraphically, leaving him to the agonies of remorse and tardy love."

Polly gave Sydney an indignant look as he said that in a slow satirical way that nettled her very much, for she hated to be thought sentimental.

"That 's not my way either," she said decidedly. "I 'd try to outlive it, and if I could n't, I 'd try to be the better for it. Disappointment need n't make a woman a fool."

"Nor an old maid, if she 's pretty and good. Remember that, and don't visit the sins of one blockhead on all the rest of mankind," said Tom, laughing at her earnestness.

"I don't think there is the slightest possibility of Miss Polly's being either," added Sydney with a look which made it evident that concealment had not seriously damaged Polly's damask cheek as yet.

"There 's Clara Bird. I have n't seen her but once since she was married. How pretty she looks!" and Polly retired behind the big glass again, thinking