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Page 20
"_You!_" laughed Cornie. "I can't imagine a good natured little puss
like you saying anything very savage to anybody."
"But I did," confessed Mary. "I _wanted_ to hurt her feelings. I fairly
ached to do it. I should have said something meaner still if I could
have thought of it quick enough. Isn't it awful? Only the second day of
the term to have things come to such a pass! Everything we do seems to
rub the other's fur up the wrong way."
"I'd ask Madam to change me to some other room," said Dorene, but Mary
resented the suggestion.
"No, indeed! I'll not have it said that I was such a fuss-cat as all
that. I'll make myself get along with her."
"Well, I don't envy you the task," was Cornie's rejoinder. "I never can
resist the temptation to take people down when they get high and mighty.
I heard her telling one of the girls at the breakfast table that she'd
never ridden on a street-car in all her life till she came to
Washington. She made Fanchon take her across the city in one instead of
calling a carriage as they always do. They have a garage full of
machines at home, and I don't know how many horses. She said it in a way
to make people who had always ridden in public conveyances feel mighty
plebeian and poor-folksy, although she insisted that street-cars are
lots of fun. 'They give you a funny sensation when they stop.' Those
were her very words."
"Well, of all things!" cried Mary, then after a moment's silent musing,
"It never struck me before, what different worlds we have been brought
up in. But if a street-car ride is as much of a novelty to her as an
automobile ride would be to me, I don't wonder that she spoke about it.
I know I'd talk about my sensations in an auto if I'd ever been in one,
and it wouldn't be bragging, either. Maybe all our other experiences
have been just as different," she went on, her judicial mind trying to
look at life from Ethelinda's view-point, in order to judge her fairly.
"I wonder what sort of a girl I would have been, if instead of always
having the Wolf at the door, we'd have had bronze lions guarding the
portals, and all the money that heart could wish."
"Money!" sniffed Cornie. "It isn't that that makes the difference in
Ethelinda. Look at Alta Westman, a million in her own right. There
isn't a sweeter, jollier, friendlier girl in the school."
"Any way," continued Mary, "I'd like to be able to put myself in
Ethelinda's place for about an hour, and see how things look to
her--especially how _I_ look to her. I'm glad I thought about that. It
will make it easier for me to get along with her, for it will help me to
make allowances for lots of things."
The door stood ajar, and catching sight of Jane Ridgeway coming up the
hall, Mary started to meet her.
"Remember," called Cornie after her. "We've taken you under our wing,
and claim you for our sorority. We're not going to have any of the
Lloydsboro Valley girls imposed on, and if she gets too uppity she'll
find herself boycotted."
As the door closed behind her Dorene remarked, "She's a dear little
thing. I'm going to see that she has so much attention to-night that
Ethelinda will wake up to the fact that she's worth having for a friend.
I'm going to ask Evelyn Berkeley to make a special point of being nice
to her."
The thought that Cornie considered her one of the Lloydsboro girls sent
Mary away with a pleasurable thrill that made her cheeks glow all
evening. There was something in the donning of party clothes that
always loosened her tongue, and conscious of looking her best she
plunged into the festivity of the hour with such evident enjoyment that
others naturally gravitated towards her to share it.
"Congratulations!" whispered Betty, happening to pass her towards the
close of the evening. "You're quite one of the belles of the ball."
"Isn't it simply perfect?" sighed Mary, her face beaming.
Herr Vogelbaum had just come in and was settling himself at the piano,
in place of the musicians who had been performing. This was an especial
treat not on the programme, and all that was needed in Mary's opinion to
complete a heavenly evening. He played the same improvisation that had
caught her up in its magic spell the day of her arrival, and she went to
her room in the uplifted frame of mind which finds everything
perfection. Even her strained relations with Ethelinda seemed a trifle,
the tiniest thorn in a world full of roses. Her last waking thought was
a resolution to be so good and patient that even that thorn should
disappear in time.
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