"Of course I"ll wear this. That"s what I got it for. Oh, Sheila, aren"t the little sleeves cunning? Just half way to the elbow--it"s lucky my arms aren"t thin!"
But Sheila only sighed again in response to Charlotte"s enthusiasm, and now Charlotte heard the sigh and glanced at her with sudden attentiveness. "What will you wear?" she demanded.
"I"ll have to wear my white muslin. I haven"t anything else."
"Oh, Sheila, that"s too bad!"
"I wouldn"t mind so _very_ much except for--" And Sheila"s eyes, wandering sadly toward Charlotte"s chiffon, finished the sentence.
But Charlotte"s dismay had already vanished. "You won"t have to wear your white muslin either," she announced in her positive, capable way.
"You can wear one of my frocks, Sheila. You must! Why"--this in a burst of generosity--"why, you can wear this one!"
"Oh, no, I couldn"t do that. Not your new frock, Charlotte! But you"re a dear to offer it!" And Sheila gave her friend a grateful hug, though Charlotte never encouraged caresses.
"Well, then, perhaps not this one," agreed Charlotte, to whom, used though she was to her pretty clothes, it would have been something of a hardship to surrender the first wearing of them to anyone else, "perhaps not this one--rose is more my color than yours. But another--a blue silk mull that will be lovely with your blue-gray eyes and black hair. I"ve worn it only two or three times, and never in Shadyville."
"No, I couldn"t," said Sheila again. "Grandmother wouldn"t let me.
I"m sure she wouldn"t."
"I don"t see why."
"She wouldn"t," persisted Sheila regretfully.
"Now look here, Sheila. She wouldn"t _know_. You"re going to spend the night with me and dress after you get here. And _she"s_ not coming to the party."
It was the same form of temptation which Ted had offered Sheila in the woods three years before, but now it was tenfold stronger. Then a mere good time was at stake; now the gratification of her young vanity, of her first girlish desire to make herself charming, was to be gained.
And as she had hesitated that day in the woods, for the sake of the fun, she hesitated now for the sake of this new, clamoring instinct.
"I"d have to tell her," she temporized.
"Then tell her," a.s.sented Charlotte impatiently, "but don"t tell her until afterwards."
It was Sheila"s own method of that earlier time--a middle path between conscience and desire, and lightly skirting both.
"I might do that," she remarked thoughtfully. "If I told her--even afterwards--it wouldn"t be quite so wicked. And I _want_ to wear the frock dreadfully!"
"Just tell her as if it"s nothing at all," advised Charlotte cleverly, "as if we never even thought of it until after you got here that evening. Then she won"t mind it a bit. You"ll see she won"t!"
"Yes, she will. She won"t like my wearing your clothes. She won"t think it"s _nice_. And when I tell, I"ll tell the whole thing--the way it really happened. But"--and Sheila"s full-lipped, generous mouth straightened into a thin line of resolution--"I"m going to do it anyway, Charlotte!"
Three days intervened before the party, and they were not happy days for Sheila. Her sense of guilt depressed every moment of the time, especially when she was in Mrs. Caldwell"s trusting presence. For Sheila was not equipped by nature to sin comfortably.
But when the eventful night arrived, and she beheld herself at last in Charlotte"s blue silk mull, with its short sleeves and little round neck frothy with lace, and its soft skirt falling to her very feet, she forgot every scruple that had been sacrificed to that enchanting end.
Charlotte, gay as a bright-hued bird with her blue eyes and yellow hair and rose-colored gown, and her mother and young Mrs. Bailey, her married sister, all stood around Sheila in an admiring circle, every now and then breaking out anew into delighted exclamations over their transformed Cinderella.
"Isn"t she too sweet?"
"And look at her eyes--as blue as Charlotte"s, aren"t they?"
"And what a young lady she seems! Isn"t that long skirt becoming to her?" cried Charlotte.
Charlotte had worn her party frocks long for the last year, and she approved emphatically of the dignity thus attained for a few hours. It gave her a delicious foretaste of the real young ladyhood to come, when she meant to be very dignified and very brilliant indeed.
But to all their pleased outcry, Sheila said nothing at all. She merely stood, radiant and silent, before them until they had to leave her for a last survey of the rooms downstairs, the flowers and the supper. Then, sure that she was quite alone, Cinderella stole to the mirror.
For a long time she gazed at the girl in the gla.s.s; a straight, slim girl in a delicate little gown that somehow brought out fully, for the first time, the charming delicacy of her face--not the delicacy of small features, of frail health, nor of a timid temper, but of an exceeding and subtle fineness, partly of the flesh, partly of the spirit, like the fineness of rare and gossamer fabrics. Sheila, of course, did not perceive this, which was always to be her one real claim to beauty, but she saw the frock itself, and white young shoulders rising from it, and above it a pair of shining eyes. And suddenly an ache came sharply into her throat and the shining eyes filled with tears.
"Oh," she whispered, leaning to the figure in the mirror, "Oh, _this_ is what I wanted! _I wanted to be beautiful_!"
CHAPTER IV
The evening was half over when Sheila, still up-borne on the tide of her feminine exultation, glanced across the room to find that Peter stood there quietly regarding her. Straightway she forsook the youth who was administering awkward flattery to her new-born vanity, and hastened to the side of her old friend.
"Oh, Peter, don"t I look nice?" she demanded eagerly.
But Peter ignored the frank appeal for a compliment. "I think you"d better call me Mr. Burnett," said he. And his tone was so serious that she failed to catch the banter of his eyes.
"Why, I"ve always called you Peter, just like grandmother does--always!"
"Yes," admitted Peter, "and it"s been very jolly and friendly. But, Sheila, I must have _something_ to remind me that you"re still a little girl and my pupil. There"s nothing in your appearance to suggest it, but perhaps--if you will address me with a great deal of respect----"
At that, Sheila laughed and patted her frock: "Oh, I understand you now! Do I really seem so grown-up?"
"So grown-up that I can"t understand how Mrs. Caldwell came to let you do it."
"Oh, Peter! _Oh, Peter_!"
"Why, what"s the matter?" he asked, surprised at the poignant exclamation. But she turned abruptly away from him, and presently he saw her blue gown flutter through a distant doorway.
"Now I wonder," he pondered, "what in the world I"ve done. Offended her by appearing to criticize Mrs. Caldwell, I suppose."
But Peter had done a much graver thing than that. Unconsciously, he had summoned Sheila"s conscience to its deserted duty; and already, like any well-intentioned conscience that has taken a vacation, it was making up for lost time.
With that comment of Peter"s--"I can"t understand how Mrs. Caldwell came to let you do it"--Sheila"s little house of pleasure suddenly tumbled to the ground. She had not meant to be sorry about the deception of the frock until _after_ the party, and until her encounter with Peter she had been successful enough in holding penitence at bay.
That vision of herself in the mirror, seeming to answer some longing of her very soul, had indeed kept her forgetful of everything but a sense of fulfillment and triumph. But now, reminded of her grandmother, she began to be sorry at once--impatiently, violently sorry.
"I must go home," she murmured to herself distressfully, as she slipped un.o.bserved through the crowded rooms. "I must go home. I can"t wait until morning! I must tell grandmother _now_!"
And so it happened that Mrs. Caldwell, looking out from her sitting-room window into the early spring night, saw a slim figure speed up her garden path as if urged by some importunate need; and the next moment Sheila was kneeling before her, with her face hidden upon her shoulder.
"Why, Sheila!--dear child!"
"Oh, grandmother, will you forgive me?"
"What should I forgive you? I"m sure you"ve done nothing wrong this time!" And Mrs. Caldwell, who was accustomed to the rigors of Sheila"s conscience, smiled above the face on her breast with tender amus.e.m.e.nt.