Everybodys Lonesome | Page 8

hadn't time to stop for longer than a peek, I saw in a Broadway shop-window some short strings of pink imitation coral of the most adorable colour, for--what do you think? Twenty-five cents a string! I've a picture of you in my mind, with your dark blue dress and one of those coral strings about your throat."
Godmother's picture looked very sweet indeed when she came out to dinner that evening. It was astonishing how many of her fairies Mary Alice had found in two short weeks! The lovely lines of her shoulders, which she had never known were the chief of all the "lines of beauty," were no longer disfigured by stiff, outstanding bretelles and ruffled-lace sleeves, but revealed in all their delicate charm by the close-fitting plain dark net. And above them rose the head of such unsuspected loveliness of contour, which rats and puffs and pompadour had once deformed grotesquely, but which the wonderful new hair-dressing accentuated in a transfiguring degree. The poise of Mary Alice's head, the carriage of her shoulders, were fine. But she had never known, before, that those were big points of beauty. So she did took lovely, with the tiny touch of coral at her throat, the pink flush in her cheeks, and the sparkle of excitement in her eyes. It was her first "party" in New York, and she and Godmother had had the most delicious day getting ready for it. Mary Alice couldn't really believe that all they did was to fix over her blue "jumper dress" and invest twenty-five cents in pink beads. But it seemed that when you were with a person like Godmother, what you actually did was magnified a thousandfold by the enchanting way you did it. Mary Alice was beginning to see that a fairy wand which can turn a pumpkin into a gold coach is not exceeded in possibilities by a fairy mind which can turn any ordinary, commonplace, matter-of-fact thing into a delightful "experience."
But something had happened during the afternoon which decided what to do about the party. They were walking west in Thirty-Third Street, past the Waldorf, when a lady came out to get into her auto. Godmother greeted her delightedly and introduced Mary Alice. But the lady's name overpowered Mary Alice and completely tied her tongue during the moment's chat.
"I used to see her a great deal, in Dresden," said Godmother when they had gone on their way, "and she's a dear. We must go and see her as she asked us to, and have her down to see us." Godmother spoke as if a very celebrated prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera were no different from any one else one might happen to know. Mary Alice couldn't get used to it.
"I--I guess I manage better when I don't know so much," she said, smiling rather wofully and remembering the man of many millions to whom she had been "nice" because she thought he was homeless and hungry.
So to the "party" they went and never an inkling had Mary Alice where it was to be or whether she was to see more captains of finance or more nightingales of song, "or what."

VI
THE "LION" OF THE EVENING
The house they entered was not at all pretentious. It was an old-fashioned house in that older part of New York in which Godmother herself lived--only further south. But it was a remodelled house; the old, high "stoop" had been taken away, and one entered, from the street level, what had once been a basement dining-room but was now a kind of reception hall. Here they left their wraps in charge of a well-bred maid whom Godmother called by name and seemed to know. And then they went up-stairs. Mary Alice was "all panicky inside," but she kept trying to remember the Secret.
Their hostess was a middle-aged lady, very plain but motherly-looking. She wore her hair combed in a way that would have been considered "terribly old-fashioned" in Mary Alice's home town, and she had on several large cameos very like some Mary Alice's mother had and scorned to wear.
Mary Alice was reasonably sure this lady was not "a millionairess or anything like that," and she didn't think she was another prima donna. The lady's name meant nothing to her.
"Well," their hostess said as Godmother greeted her, "now the party can begin--here's Mary Alice! Two Mary Alices!" she added as she caught sight of the second one. "Who says this isn't going to be a real party?"
Evidently they liked Godmother in this house; and evidently they were prepared to like Mary Alice. Then, before she had time to think any more about it, three or four persons came up to greet Godmother, who didn't try to introduce Mary Alice at all--just let her "tag along" without any