Mary Jane was arranging a wonderful waterfall. On the top of this she hung a cluster of curls, and on the top of her head she tied in a bunch of frizettes with a scarlet ribbon.
"Now, that's what I call stylish;" and she turned round to Charlie. "If I was you, I'd let my hair grow; and, as soon as it is long enough to tie in a little knot, you can buy a waterfall."
Charlie was quite bewildered with these manifold adornments.
Then Mary Jane put on a white dress, a red carved ivory pin and ear-rings, and presented quite a gorgeous appearance.
"Charlie, I've been thinking—why can't you board here? I pay mother two dollars a week, and you could just as well have part of my room. Mother wanted me to let the boys have it, because there were two of them; but I wanted plenty of room. Yes: it would be real nice to have you here. I'll ask mother. I know you can find something to do."
A great load seemed lifted from Charlie's heart.
Then they went down to the next floor. The boys had the hall bedroom, and the back room was used by the heads of the family. There were two large pantries between, and then a front parlor. Charlie was quite stunned; for the place appeared fully as gorgeous as Mary Jane. A cheap Brussels carpet in bright colors, the figure of which ran all over the floor; two immense vases on the mantle, where grotesque Chinese figures were disporting on a bright green ground; a rather shabby crimson plush rocker; and some quite impossible sunsets done in oil, with showy wide gilt frames. Mrs. Wilcox had purchased them at auction, and considered them a great bargain.
Then Mary Jane, with a great deal of giggling and blushing, confessed to Charlie that she had a beau. "A real nice young man," clerk in a dry-goods store, Walter Brown by name, and that he came almost every evening.
"You can't help liking him," was the positive assertion. "I wish you didn't have short hair, nor look so much like a little girl; for you are as tall as I am."
Which was very true; but Charlie felt herself quite a child, and very much startled at the idea of beaux.