Chapter XII: A Studio Tea

THE calico party was a great success.

Anything sweeter than Pretty Polly Perkins, as every one now called her, could not be imagined, and when she came in, wearing her lilac sunbonnet, a little silk work-bag hanging on her arm, and her frock turned in at the neck to display her beautiful throat, she was, as Edna said, the loveliest thing in sight. A soft mull fichu hid the defects of bad fitting, which had at first made Janet despair of any possibilities of the costume. A knot of lilac ribbon fastening the fichu, matched the color of the fascinating little sunbonnet which half concealed, half emphasized the beauty of the girl's face. Janet, too, had loosened the soft hair, and had piled it up becomingly on Polly's shapely little head, so that Polly herself was surprised at the effect. She had been perfectly willing to place herself in the hands of these juniors who knew so much and were so good to her, but the result astonished the unsophisticated little lass.

"She is a raving, tearing beauty," said Cordelia, looking at Polly in astonishment. "Where did you unearth her, Janet?"

"Oh, she is a friend of one of Edna's cousins, and we were asked to be nice to her."

"Nice to that? To that exquisite bit of humanity? How could any one help being nice, if she is half as lovely as she looks?"

"She is just as lovable as she appears," Janet told her. "She is an orphan, and is the pluckiest little thing, in spite of her delicate little face and her innocent eyes. She has a stepmother, who isn't so bad, but she is poor, and can't do very much for Polly."

Then she went on to tell of Polly's ambitions, and of how she wanted to make her way in the world by her own efforts, so Cordelia's sympathies were enlisted, and before the evening was over, half the junior class looked upon Polly as a heroine and were prepared to adore her.

The next triumph for the girl was when Becky sent word that she had seen Miss Thurston and that she would be delighted if the girls could bring Polly to her, the sooner the better. She needed just such a model for a set of illustrations she was about to begin. So Janet raced off to the little bare attic to tell its occupant of this new opportunity.

"Polly, my dear," she said, as she burst into the room, "there are new fields for you to work in." Then she unfolded her plan.

"Oh, Miss Ferguson," Polly began.

"Janet, please. If I Polly you, you must Janet me."

"Dear Janet, then," said Polly kissing her cheek, "I never heard of such luck. Will I do? Do you think I look the kind of girl she wants to suggest? Can I do what she wants? You know I know so little about anything, and I am so green and awkward."

"Can you sit still for twenty minutes at a time? Can you stand for as long?"

"What a question. Of course I can do that."

"That is all there is to it. You don't have to stand a tiptoe like a flying Mercury, nor twist yourself into contortions like a Laocoon. You simply have to be an ordinary girl under ordinary circumstances doing ordinary things. I know you have those casts in the Museum in mind, but you are not an antique, my dear, and are not expected to be for many years to come. Miss Thurston will probably dress you up in costumes to suit her subjects, but you won't mind that; it is part of the requirements of a model, you know; and there will be nothing objectionable in the whole performance; in fact I should think you might get considerable fun out of it."

"Oh, I understand all that; and I am willing to wear anything, from a Greek dress to the most elaborate costume of a modern belle."

"Then you are all right. Good-bye, Pretty Polly Perkins. You'll be 'as beautiful as a butterfly and as proud as a queen,' like the other Polly Perkins of Abington Green. Ted and I are going with you, so you won't be scared at the lay figure and the skull in Miss Thurston's studio. Friday afternoon, sweetness."

And Janet hastened back to the theme she had left uncompleted in order to make this visit.

Friday afternoon brought Polly, who appeared promptly in her dowdy little cloth jacket, ugly plaid skirt and shabby hat.

"Oh, me," said Teddy as she saw her coming, "if we only dared to furbish her up a bit. Miss Thurston will never see her possibilities in those clothes. Do you suppose she would object to my lending her a hat?"

"I'm afraid she would," said Janet. "You know how she was about the sunbonnet, and it was all I could do to get her to wear that fichu of mine. If we hadn't made an obvious point of borrowing all sorts of things from one another, she'd never have let us lend her all we did for the calico party."

"I'll try, anyhow," said Teddy; "she can do no more than refuse." So when Polly entered, she said coaxingly: "Don't you know, Polly dear, that is a very unbecoming hat? Please don't be offended at my mentioning it; Janet and I always tell each other when either wears anything unbecoming. Won't you let me lend you one of my hats just for to-day, so Miss Thurston will see you at your best? Janet and I often exchange in that way. If you will lend me yours, I will lend you mine."

But Polly, who knew that her rusty out-of-date black felt was no match for the stylish plumed affair that Teddy poised on her hand, said a little stiffly: "Thank you very much, Teddy, but I prefer to wear my own hat." Then the red came to her cheeks. "Please don't think I—I am unappreciative of your kindness. I realize that it is really heroic for you to offer to appear in my hat, but I am used to it, and I don't mind, while you couldn't help feeling awkward and queer in it. I should be unhappy if I allowed you to wear it." Then whimsically: "Besides, I can't see it when it is on my own head, and if I had it before me on yours, I'd realize more than ever what a horror it is, and I'd never be able to put it on again with any tolerance of it. So don't try to make me any more dissatisfied with it than I am."

"That settles it," said Janet. "You are a dear philosophical thing, Polly. Come along and never mind your hat."

It is true that Miss Thurston looked a little disappointed when Polly was presented to her, but when Janet had tweaked off the girl's hat and Polly had removed her ill-fitting jacket, she smiled appreciatively.

"Do you think I will do?" asked Polly, an anxious expression in her lovely eyes, for she had been quick to note that first glance of disapproval.

"Do, my dear? Why, of course," replied Miss Thurston. "If you can hold your pose well, I shall be more than satisfied. I have a lot of costumes here and I am sure I can adapt them to your figure. Let me see." She brought out a hat whose elegance announced that it was the creation of no ordinary milliner.

Janet recognized it at once as being one of Becky's favorite pieces of head-gear, and when Miss Thurston set it upon Polly's head both Janet and Edna exclaimed: "Isn't she too lovely for anything in that?"

Miss Thurston stood off to note the effect. "That is charming," she declared. "Now, Miss Perkins, just try this on," and she held out a handsome coat trimmed with bands of fur.

The girls fairly screamed their admiration. "I knew she would look like a dream in that," said Teddy. "Just look at yourself, Polly. Aren't you as beautiful as a butterfly?" She pulled Polly toward the long mirror at the end of the room, and Polly laughed unaffectedly.

"I'm like a peacock," she said. "I'm all right as long as I don't look below my magnificence. When I look at my dingy old skirt, I feel like a barn-yard fowl dressed up in peacock's feathers."

Miss Thurston laughed. "Then slip this on," she suggested, handing her a long cloth skirt, and when Polly had donned it the transformation was complete. "You'll do beautifully," said the artist in a pleased tone. "Could you sit for me this afternoon?"

"Why, certainly," replied Polly ingenuously; "I came for that, you know."

"Then we'll leave her to your tender mercies, Miss Thurston," said Teddy.

"I'll promise not to tire her out the first hour," said Miss Thurston. "I will make some rapid sketches first; they will not require a fixed pose for very long. By the way, couldn't you two stay for a few minutes, and let me get a group or two? It would help me so much in finding the proper relation. Have you time?"

"Why, yes," returned the two, looking at each other. "It is Friday, you know, and there isn't any pressing need for us to hang over our books all afternoon."

So Polly was soon properly attired, and the three girls spent an hour in taking various positions, and after this Miss Thurston insisted upon giving them a cup of tea, so they had quite a jolly time of it.

"I shall give a studio tea soon, and I wish you girls would come and help me, all three of you," Miss Thurston said in the midst of their talk. "Becky Burdett is coming, and I thought it would make it interesting if we all were to wear some sort of costume. What do you think of that plan?"

"Lovely," cried the girls.

"I have a lot here, you know," said Miss Thurston. "There is a Dutch dress."

"I'll take that," cried Edna.

"And an Italian peasant costume."

"That will just do for me," said Janet

"It will just about fit you," Miss Thurston told her, as she scanned her critically. "Then there is a pretty empire gown that will exactly suit Miss Perkins, and I can take a certain Japanese costume which is the most comfortable of all and fitted to my more mature years." She laughed as she spoke, for, in spite of her gray hair and the fact that she was not young, she seemed in her enthusiasms as eager as a girl.

"What have you for Becky?" asked Janet.

"Oh, Becky can wear a French marquise dress which is gorgeous, and will be the very thing for her."

"Do hurry up and have it," said Teddy. "I'm just longing to see myself in one of those queer caps with a pair of bed-springs standing out over my ears."

"Then hold yourself in readiness for the third Friday of next month," said Miss Thurston. "Must you go, girls? I am greatly indebted to you for bringing Miss Perkins, and for your goodness in posing for me. When can you come again, Miss Perkins? Now that I have you, I want to hold on to you."

"Any afternoon, but Thursday."

"Then I shall be glad for awhile if you will come every afternoon but Thursday. I can forge ahead famously with these illustrations if you come as often as that. When these are done, I shall want you for something else, if you have the time to give me. Good-bye. Tell Becky, if you see her, that I have a thousand things to say to her."

The girls took their departure down a steep stairway and groped their way out. The elevator was not running. They discovered through later experience that it seldom was.

"Well, Polly," said Teddy when they had reached the street. "What do you think of your job?"

"I think it is wonderful," Polly answered. "I was so interested in all those curious things, and Miss Thurston is so nice that I feel as if I were in a dream. I did want to go around and examine all those strange objects she has scattered around in such careless profusion."

"Not so careless as you may suppose," said Janet. "They will become familiar enough to you before you get through."

"It will be a liberal education to me," said Polly, whose eyes were bright with excitement. "I never expected to come into contact with a real artist and to be going every day to a studio. It is perfectly wonderful to me to suddenly step into such a world." She gave a long sigh. "How different, how very different from the humdrum life at home. You girls have opened up a new avenue of pleasure to me. What can I ever do for you?"

"Just love us a little," replied Janet affectionately slipping her arm into Polly's. "Isn't it fine about the studio tea? And wasn't it dear of Miss Thurston to ask us to help her? I shall love to dress up in that costume and pass around tea and cakes."

"I think," said Polly slowly, "that Miss Thurston must have a beautiful nature. She couldn't have included me, if she hadn't thought of the costumes, and so she did it that I might be on an equal footing with you all in the matter of dress. I know that."

"Why, Polly, what makes you think so?" asked Janet.

"I saw her expression when she first saw me, and after that I noticed that she seemed to be thinking of something very intently; while we were drinking tea, it was. I am sure she planned it all out then."

"Well, if she did," said Janet lightly, "it will be ever so much more fun. Don't feel sensitive about it, Polly, but take the good the gods send without asking why it was sent."

"Oh, I do that," said Polly happily, "and if I looked for motives, I should find that all those that inspired my friends were such as I can only wonder at and be thankful for."

After that, Polly went regularly to Miss Thurston, and one day came to the girls with glowing cheeks and beaming eyes. She had discovered another revenue. Mrs. Thurston expected to go abroad and was deficient in German. When she heard of Polly's familiarity with the language, she begged that she would combine the work of model with that of teacher, and so Polly would earn more than double. "I am the luckiest girl that ever lived," she said.

"And the sweetest," said Janet, kissing her. Janet, it may be said, was fairly in love with the little country maid, and often said she wished she could employ her to sit for her. "I'd like nothing better than to gaze at her by the hour," she told Teddy. "I think I'll turn artist and have her for a perpetual model."

"As if one could turn artist who has no talent for it," said the literal Teddy.

But in spite of Polly's luck the girl did not make more than enough for her expenses, and found it hard to cover those, modest as she tried to make them. The old black hat and the frayed-at-edges jacket were still in evidence. Only on the afternoons when she went to Miss Thurston was Polly a grand lady, in gorgeous street attire, in dainty silken house gowns, or ravishing evening costume. Once or twice Janet had beheld her thus transfigured and had come home with a cry against fate for so allowing Polly's charms to be hidden from the world.

"In proper clothes, the child could make her fortune," she said. "When I think of creatures like that awful Pauline Robinson with a complexion like a stable sponge, eyes like boiled onions and a figure like a round-shouldered beanpole, with all her elegant clothes hung on her, I can't help railing at fate."

"But consider the awfulness of the spectacle presented by Pauline in Polly's clothes," said Teddy.

"I can't consider that," said Janet, "it is too terrible to contemplate."

"Perhaps," said Teddy consolingly, "if Polly were rich, she would be disagreeable, and vain, and struck up. It's partly her poverty, maybe, that makes her so lovable. Maybe the discipline is good for her."

"She has been disciplined quite long enough," said Janet discontentedly. "I think it is time there was some let up to it. Her character is formed and what's the good of any further privations for her?"

"At all events," returned Teddy, "she'll look like an angel at Miss Thurston's tea." And Polly certainly was a bewitching beauty in her short-waisted empire gown, her lovely fluffy hair piled up on her shapely head, her round arms and her exquisite throat displayed to view. Janet, while looking quite in character, did not find her costume particularly becoming, though Becky was a magnificent marquise, and Teddy the most rosy-faced plump little Dutch girl possible.

It was when busy, passing around tea and cakes, that Janet saw Van Austin and his mother come in. At that moment she realized to its full extent the beauty of Polly, for as soon as Van's eyes fell on the girl, he stopped short in what he was saying and exclaimed, "What a dream of beauty that girl is. Who is she, Miss Janet?"

Janet's hand shook a little as she lifted the sugar-tongs to drop a lump in Van's cup.

"You mean Miss Perkins, don't you?" she said quite evenly. "The girl in the blue empire gown?"

"Yes, that is the one. Who is she? Where did she come from?"

For a little minute, Janet paused before answering, then she said bravely: "She is a dear friend of Ted's and mine, one of the loveliest girls in college. This is her freshman year. She is very young and has lived in the country all her life, even when she was going to the high school, for she traveled back and forth from the town to the village. Shall I present you? I can promise that you will find her as charming as she looks."

Leading the way to where Polly stood, she said in her most winning tones: "Polly, dear, I want you to meet my friend Mr. Austin. Tell him about your funny German teacher, and here, give me those salted almonds, Mrs. Austin looks as if she would like some."

She left the two together, and for the rest of the afternoon Van had eyes and ears for no one but Polly. He even begged Miss Thurston to say that he ought to stay till all the others had left, and excused himself from going home with his mother by telling her that Miss Thurston needed him, and it was only when he was fairly driven out that he went.

After this, he followed up the meeting by offering every attention he could to Polly. He called at her shabby little boarding house. He sent her huge bunches of violets; he dropped into the studio the afternoons that he knew she would be there, and though Miss Thurston invariably sent him away before it was time for Polly to return home, he came again and again. Polly, happy and dazzled, confided all this to Janet and received such intense and sympathetic attention to her confession that she declared Janet was the dearest friend and sweetest confidante a girl could have.

"Mr. Austin has asked me to go to a concert with him," she told Janet one day, "and Miss Thurston says she will chaperon us. But oh, Janet, what have I to wear? I simply cannot let him see me in those shabby clothes of mine. You know I never have allowed him to go anywhere with me and he has never seen me in ordinary street dress, for he almost always meets me at the studio before I have had time to change the costume in which I have been posing. Then when he has called to see me, where I live, I have that gray gown that you helped me to make respectable for house wear and I always can put that on."

"If you would only let me lend you something," said Janet.

"Oh, no, no," protested Polly, "I simply couldn't appear under false pretenses. You are a dear to offer, but I can't do that; I'd rather stay at home."

"When is the concert?" asked Janet.

"Next Friday night."

"Well," said Janet, "what have you told him?"

"I said I didn't know whether I could go or not. I felt as if I must let myself have a little hope, though I knew it was foolish to suppose I could get up a proper dress by that time. He said I needn't tell him till the last minute, and that he would drop in on Friday afternoon at the studio and find out."

"Then there is nearly a week before us. We will try to evolve some sort of scheme in that time. Don't worry over it, dear child. Run along now and let me grapple with the problem."

Polly had no sooner left than Teddy entered, her arms full of books.

"Why so sober, Janet?" she asked, plunging the books on a chair.

"I've a weighty problem to solve," Janet told her. "It is this: How can Polly Perkins provide herself with proper attire for a concert next Friday when she has not a cent to bless herself with? I am wondering how fairy godmothers manage such affairs. Not being possessed of a pumpkin large enough, nor a magic wand, nor six mice and six rats, I can't seem to settle the question satisfactorily. Do you suppose I could count on Mascot to furnish the mice and rats? I might get the pumpkin from home, though, alas, where will I find the magic wand?"

"Who is she going with?" asked Teddy with a little tartness in her tone.

"Mr. Vansant Austin and Miss Thurston."

"Janet, you are the queerest girl I ever saw," exclaimed Teddy. "I believe you would delight in haircloth and hempen ropes around your waist, and crosses with stickers all over them to jam against your chest."

"Do you?" said Janet calmly. "No, Ted, I am not of the stuff martyrs are made of, but I hope I am a self-respecting, decent, kindly American woman; that's all."

And then she returned to the German grammar she had flung down when Polly came in.