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Read Ebook: Nancy of Paradise Cottage by Watkins Shirley
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Ebook has 732 lines and 51232 words, and 15 pages
"She could have a pale blue taffeta," Mrs. Prescott suggested, who was in her element when the subject turned to the matter of clothes, "made perfectly plain--with a broad girdle--or you could have a girdle and shoulder-knots of silver ribbon--and wear silver slippers with it. It would be dear with a round neck, and tiny little sleeves, and a short, bouffant skirt. You could wear my old rose-colored evening wrap,--it's still in perfect condition."
"Monday morning, then," said Nancy. "We'd better take an early train."
When her mother and sister had gone to bed, she took out her little account book and began to figure, then all at once she flung the pencil down in disgust at herself.
"Only I'm jolly well sick of being a boy, Daddy," she said, as she jumped into bed. "I'll let the first person who steps forward take the job."
A MODERN CINDERELLA
"Let's take a cab to the station. The roads are awfully wet still, and I'll ruin my shoes," suggested Alma. The little family were at breakfast, Nancy and Alma hastily swallowing their coffee so that they could hurry off to the station. After the fit of autumn wind and rain, another summer day had come, with a glistening sunlight which was doing its best to cheer up the drooping flowers in the tiny garden.
"Seventy-five dollars ought to be enough," said Mrs. Prescott vaguely, after a moment's calculation. Nancy whooped.
"Seventy-five! Good gracious--why, if I spend a cent over forty, we'll have to live on bread and water for the rest of the month!"
"Well, just as you think, dear--you know best, of course," Mrs. Prescott answered absently. "You two had better be starting. I wish you would get Alma a new hat while you're in town, Nancy. I don't quite like that one she has--it doesn't go with her suit."
Nancy pushed her chair back from the table.
"I'll trot out and see Hannah a moment. We have about thirty-five minutes, Alma."
It took them twenty minutes to walk to the station. Alma was in high spirits, Nancy still thoughtful. But the wind was up and out, tossing the trees, rippling the puddles, which reflected a clear, sparkling sky, and the riotous, care-free mood of the morning was infectious.
As the train sped through the open country, passing stretches of yellowing fields, clusters of woodland and busy little villages, Alma chattered joyously:
"Aren't you awfully glad about the party, Nancy? Don't you think we can go to a matin?e--it's such a deliciously idle, luxurious sort of thing to do! I'm going to have chicken patties for luncheon, and lots of that scrumptious chocolate icecream that's almost black. Don't you love restaurant food, Nancy? It's such fun to sit and watch the people, and wonder what they are going to do after luncheon, and what they are saying to each other, and where they live. When I'm married I shall certainly live in town, and I'll have a box at the opera, and I'll carry a pair of those eye-glasses on jewelled sticks--what-do-you-call-'ems--and every morning I'll go down-town in my car and shop, and then I'll meet my husband for luncheon at Sherry's or the Plaza."
"Of course you'll have a country-place on Long Island," suggested Nancy, with good-natured irony, which Alma took quite seriously.
"For whose benefit?"
"Oh, my own."
"We're feeling rich to-day, aren't we?"
"Well, I don't know anything that feels better than to be going to buy a new dress. Shall we get the hat too, Nancy?"
"What do you think?"
Alma hesitated.
"It makes you miserable."
"Or else," said Nancy, with a curl of the lip, "or else, if you aren't bothered with any too much pride, you'll do what that Margot Cunningham does. She simply camps on the Porterbridges. Elise is so good-natured that she lets Margot buy everything she likes and charge it to her, and Margot finds life so comfy there that she can't tear herself away. I'd rather work my fingers to the bone than take so much as a pair of gloves given to me out of good-natured charity!" Nancy's eyes sparkled. Alma was silent. There were times when Nancy's fierce, stubborn pride frightened her--sometimes the way her sister's lips folded together, and her small, cleft chin was lifted, made her fancy that there might be a resemblance between Nancy and old Mr. Prescott. Alma was the butterfly, and Nancy the bee; the butterfly no doubt wonders why the bee so busily stores away the honey won by thrift and industry, and, in all probability, the bee reads many a lesson to the gay-winged idler who clings to the sunny flower. But to-day the bee relented.
"Nancy, you're the most angelic person!" squealed Alma. "But aren't you going to get yourself something, too? It makes me feel awfully mean to get new things when you have to wear that dowdy old yellow thing."
"Dowdy, indeed. It's grand. 'Miss Nancy Prescott was charming in a simple gown of mousseline-de-soie, which hung in the straight lines now so much in vogue. Her only ornaments were a bouquet of rare flowers, contrasting exquisitely with the shade of her frock,--a toilette of unusual chic. Miss Alma Prescott, Melbrook's noted beauty, was superb in a lavish creation'--You're going to be awfully lavish, and quite the belle of the ball."
"My black ones are all right. I'll put fresh bows on them," said Nancy, firm as a Trojan outwardly, though within her resolution wavered. Dared she take another seven dollars? She began to feel reckless.
"Are you waited on, madam?" The smooth voice of a saleswoman roused her from her calculations.
"We want to see some blue taffeta--not awfully expensive."
"Step this way. We have something exquisite--five dollars a yard."
"Oh, haven't you anything less than that?" stammered Nancy in dismay. Alma glanced at her reprovingly.
"Here is a beautiful material--quite new," lured the saleswoman. "A wonderful shade. It will be impossible to duplicate. See how it falls--as softly and gracefully as satin, but with more body to it. The other is much stiffer."
"How--how much is it?" asked Nancy feebly.
"Five-ninety-eight. It's special, of course. Later on the regular price will be six-fifty."
"Have--have you anything for about three dollars a yard?" asked Nancy, wishing that Alma would do the haggling sometimes.
The saleswoman listlessly unrolled a yard or two from another bolt and held it up.
"Is it for yourself, madam? Or for the other young lady?"
"It's for my sister. Let me hold this against your hair, Alma."
"Oh, of course, this paler shade is not nearly so effective at night," agreed the saleswoman, pouncing keenly upon her prey. "See how beautifully this deeper color brings out the gold in the young lady's hair. Would you like to take it to the mirror, miss?"
"Oh, don't, Alma!" begged Nancy, in comical despair. "Of course there isn't any comparison." She felt herself weakening. "I--I suppose this would really wear better too."
"Of course it would," said Alma, quickly. "That other stuff is so stiff it would split in no time."
Five times five-ninety-eight--thirty dollars. Nancy wrinkled her forehead, but she knew that she had succumbed even before she announced her surrender. The saleswoman, watching her, lynx-eyed, smiled. Alma preened herself in front of the long mirror, frankly admiring herself, with the soft, silken stuff draped around her shoulders.
"All right," said Nancy. "Give me five yards."
"Charged?" purred the saleswoman. But Nancy had no mind to have the gray ghost of her extravagance revisit her on the first of the month.
"No, no! I'll pay for it, and take it with me." She counted out her little roll of bills, trying not to notice the pitiable way in which her purse shrank in, like the cheeks of a hungry man.
"Oh, no--no, thanks." Nancy clutched Alma, and turned her head away from the shimmering, pearl-tinted fabric. For all her stiff level-headedness, she was only human, and a girl with a healthy, ardent longing for beautiful finery; prudent she was, but prudence soon reaches its limits when the pressure of feminine vanity and exquisite luxury is brought to bear upon it. There was only one course of resistance. Nancy fled.
They tried on slippers. Certainly Alma's tiny foot and slender ankle was a delightful object to contemplate as she turned it this way and that before the little mirror.
"If you had a little buckle, miss--we have some very new rhinestone ornaments--I'd like to show you one--a butterfly set in a fan of silver lace. Just a moment."
Before Nancy could stop her the saleswoman had gone.
"We won't get the buckles, you dear old thing," Alma said consolingly, bending the sole of her foot. "We'll just look at them."
Nancy smiled wryly.
"Gorgeous," echoed Nancy.
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