Everybodys Lonesome | Page 8

tell you anything at all--just leave you to remember

that 'folks is folks,' and to find out the rest for yourself. You needn't
decide now. Take all day to think about it, if you like."
"Oh, dear!" cried Mary Alice, "I'm all in a flutter. I don't believe I'll
ever be able to decide, but I'll think hard all day. And now tell me what
I am to wear."
She went to her room and got her dark blue taffeta and showed the
progress of yesterday with the new dark net sleeves to replace the ugly
ruffly white lace ones.
"That's going to be fine!" approved Godmother. "Now, this morning I
am going to help you make the new yoke and collar; and then"--she
squinted up her eyes and began looking as if she were studying a
picture the way so many picture-lovers like to do, through only a
narrow slit of vision which sharpens perspective and intensifies
detail--"I think we'll go shopping. Yesterday, when I was hurrying past
and 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