Billie Bradleyfound Miss Arbuckle and the girls impatiently awaiting her at the Busy Bee.
“We’re starving!” they cried reproachfully. “What has been keeping you?”
“And where’s the lion cub?” another wanted to know.
Billie smiled mysteriously.
“Just wait till you see her! You’d be surprised!”
Whereupon, Billie proceeded to “fix things” with Miss Arbuckle. This was not difficult, Miss Arbuckle being a friend of Billie’s with consequent implicit belief in the girl’s good sense and judgment.
“We haven’t finished our shopping—not nearly,” Billie explained, having drawn the teacher aside so that the curious and watchful girls could not hear what was said. “If you don’t mind, Miss Arbuckle, I’d like to take Edina to lunch—just the two of us. After that we will shop some more and maybe take in a movie, if there’s time.”
“We—ell,” the teacher hesitated, “if you will giveme your word to be on hand to take the school bus back——”
“Oh, I will,” promised Billie. “Thanks so much, Miss Arbuckle. It would simply spoil everything to—to spring Edina on them now.”
A look of mutual understanding passed between teacher and pupil. Miss Arbuckle smiled.
“I suppose it would,” sheagreed. “Run along to your good work, Billie. I’m entirely in sympathy with it and I wish you luck.”
“Miss Arbuckle, you’re a perfect dear!” cried Billie gratefully.
She squeezed the teacher’s hand, flashed one triumphant look at the group of curious, half-envious girls, and darted out into the street.
In the fitting room at the department store, Billie found a transformed Edina impatiently awaiting her. Billie paused in the doorway and stared at the wholly unfamiliar apparition.
“Turn yourself about, Edina,” she breathed. “Slowly—that’s right. My dear, you are a triumph! I’m proud of you—and me! Come along now and we’ll get something to eat. I’m starving. Besides, I’ve got to show you off!”
Edina Tooker would never be beautiful. Nor could she even be spoken of as a pretty girl. But Billie realized as she looked at this new, tastefully dressed Edina that the girl possessed a native dignity and poise that was more compelling than mereprettiness. Her own prophecy was being fulfilled. The girl had become a personage.
Perhaps Edina read something of this in Billie’s prolonged scrutiny.
“I’m just tryin’ to live up to my clothes,” she said, with a wistful smile. “They’re the first things I ever owned in all my life that seemed to—to belong to me. I know I look different and, somehow, I begin to feel different.”
“You will feel differenter and differenter as time goes on,” Billie prophesied gaily. “You’re a knockout, Edina. I can’t wait for the girls to see you.”
Into the eyes of Edina came a provocative gleam that was as new as her new clothes.
“Neither can I!” she confessed. “Mebbe they won’t laugh at me now.”
“They will be simply green with envy,” prophesied Billie. “I am, myself. Just think of having all those perfectly gorgeous new frocks all at once!”
Edina chuckled.
“I can’t get over the notion I should be twins,” she chuckled.
The gratified saleswoman parted from them with regret and many urgent invitations to visit her again.
“If I did that often,” chuckled Edina, “Paw would be bankrupt. As it is, I’ll have to write him for more money. He’ll like it, though,” she added in that gentler tone she always used when speaking of her parents. “Paw always wanted to do thingsfor Maw and me. He wants us to have the best, Paw does.”
Laden with bundles, the two girls went below to the store tea room where they ordered creamed chicken on toast and apple tart.
Billie noticed that Edina ate carefully, picking up a knife or fork or spoon only when she was sure she had chosen the right one.
“Raw and crude enough,” thought Billie. “But intelligent and eager to learn. Her new clothes will give her confidence. Meantime, I am having the time of my life!”
Their appetites satisfied, the girls returned with a will to their shopping.
Shoes were bought, several pairs of them, and stockings to match. Then Billie led her protégé to the toilet goods counter where they bought creams and unguents.
“Anybody’d think I was going to be one of them movie queens,” Edina protested. “What do you suppose I’m going to do with that stuff?”
“Wear it on your face at night,” Billie retorted imperturbably.
“Not all at once!” cried Edina horrified.
Billie glanced at her to make sure she meant it, then went off into gales of giggles that made passing shoppers gaze at her curiously.
“A little at a time, you silly! Edina, you’ll be the death of me yet!”
“Well, I don’t like the idea of it, nohow—anyhow,” the girl persisted doggedly. “I ain’t never—ever—had anything but good spring water on my face up to now and I’m not yearning to go greasing myself up like an Indian at this late date.”
“You’ll get used to it,” prophesied Billie cheerfully. “You can get used to anything. Besides, now that you have all those beautiful dresses, you must grow a complexion to match.”
“How you talk! A complexion ain’t—isn’t—like shoes and stockings—that it’s got to match up with your clothes.”
“It’s even more important,” said Billie firmly. “Don’t argue. Come along!”
Laden with boxes and bundles, they found their way to a movie picture palace in the vicinity.
The scenario of the picture happened to be laid in the West—one of those blood-and-thunder films replete with villains, dashing ponies, lariats, and heroic cowboys. During the entire entertainment, Edina kept up a running fire of comment and criticism that provided Billie with more entertainment than the film, much to the annoyance of a dignified and portly old gentleman who had the seat in front of them.
At the end of the picture Billie glanced at her wrist watch and tugged at the sleeves of Edina’s new coat.
“We have to go. If we miss the school bus wewill get about sixteen demerits apiece and I’ll be barred from boating and tennis for the rest of the fall term, and that I could never stand! We’ll have to bolt for it.”
Edina was seized by sudden panic.
“I don’t want to go,” she said, in a strained, tight voice. “I feel such a fool, all togged out like this! I—I’d ruther stay here in the dark!”