Nancy Of Paradise Cottage Part 3

"Now, ma'am, consider yourself the owner of unlimited wealth," said Nancy, as they swung briskly into the concourse of the Grand Central Station. "You're a regular Cinderella, and _I'm_ your G.o.dmother, who is going to perform the stupendously brilliant, mystifying act of turning twenty rolls of sitting-room wall-paper, and three coats of brown paint into--five yards of superb silk, two silver slippers, two silk stockings, and three yards of silver ribbon; or, one simple country maiden into a fashionable miss of entrancing beauty."

"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."

"You ought to have some new slippers, Nancy--a pair of gold ones would absolutely _make_ your dress."

"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.

"For heaven's sake, don't sound as if you hadn't a dollar to your name, or she'll just right-about-face and walk off," she whispered. "We'll _look_ at the expensive silk, and then work around to the cheaper--explain that it's more what we want, and so on."

"Yes, and the cheaper silk will look so impossible after we've seen the other that we'll be taking it," returned Nancy. "_I_ know their wiles."

"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."

"Isn't it _lovely_?" breathed Alma, touching the gleaming stuff with careful fingers.

"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."

"It's not nearly so nice as the other, of course," observed Alma, in a casual tone. "It's awfully stiff, and the color's sort of washed out.

I really think----"

"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 succ.u.mbed 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.

"Is there nothing you would like for yourself, madam?" murmured the voice of the temptress. "Here is some ravishing charmeuse--the true ashes-of-roses. With your dark hair and eyes----"

"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.

"Now, slippers." Alma skipped along beside her, hugging her precious bundles, with shining eyes, and cheeks aglow. "I think I love slippers better than anything in the world. Nancy, you're a perfect _lamb_."

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 b.u.t.terfly 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.

"I'd _like_ to get you everything in the shop--I hate to be stingy with you, dear; it's just this old thing," and she held up the shabby purse.

"_Isn't_ that perfectly gorgeous?" shrieked Alma, as the saleswoman held a little jewelled dragon-fly, poised on a spray of silver lace, against her instep.

"Gorgeous," echoed Nancy.

"It's a very chic tr.i.m.m.i.n.g--of course we use it only on the handsomer slippers," chanted the saleswoman. "Now, we could put that on for you in five minutes, and really the expense would be small, considering that nothing more would be needed as an ornament, and it would be the smartest thing to wear--no tr.i.m.m.i.n.g on the dress whatever."

"How much would it be?" asked Alma. "I--I can't take it now, but later----"

"The buckles are five dollars, and with the lace fan it would come to seven. I would advise you--the prices will go up in another month----"

"Well, Alma----" Nancy hesitated, made one last frantic grasp at her fleeting prudence and surrendered. "Fourteen dollars. All right. You can take the buckles as a Christmas present from me. I'll pay for those, and we'll be back for them after we've got some other things."

"Nancy, you angel! You lamb! You duck! You angelic dumpling!" crowed Alma. "I never felt so absolutely luxurious in all my life."

"I don't imagine you ever did," remarked Nancy; she was aghast at her own extravagance. She judged herself harshly as the victim of the failing which she had so long combatted in her mother and sister.

Every atom of the prudence with which she had armed herself seemed to be melting away like wax before a furnace. She had already spent forty-four dollars, and there was still the silver ribbon to be bought, which would bring the sum up to forty-five at the very least. She had originally intended to buy one or two small items with which to freshen up her own dress for the dance, but she stubbornly put aside the idea.

"Nancy, darling, aren't you going to get yourself some slippers?"

"No--I don't need them. The ones I have are quite good."

"I feel so mean, Nancy. Do you think I'm horribly selfish?"