[CHAPTER XII]
A STUDIO TEA
THE calico party was a great success.
Anything sweeter than Pretty Polly Perkins, as every one now called her, could not be imagined, and when she came in, wearing her lilac sunbonnet, a little silk work-bag hanging on her arm, and her frock turned in at the neck to display her beautiful throat, she was, as Edna said, the loveliest thing in sight. A soft mull fichu hid the defects of bad fitting, which had at first made Janet despair of any possibilities of the costume. A knot of lilac ribbon fastening the fichu, matched the color of the fascinating little sunbonnet which half concealed, half emphasized the beauty of the girl's face. Janet, too, had loosened the soft hair, and had piled it up becomingly on Polly's shapely little head, so that Polly herself was surprised at the effect. She had been perfectly willing to place herself in the hands of these juniors who knew so much and were so good to her, but the result astonished the unsophisticated little lass.
"She is a raving, tearing beauty," said Cordelia, looking at Polly in astonishment. "Where did you unearth her, Janet?"
"Oh, she is a friend of one of Edna's cousins, and we were asked to be nice to her."
"Nice to that? To that exquisite bit of humanity? How could any one help being nice, if she is half as lovely as she looks?"
"She is just as lovable as she appears," Janet told her. "She is an orphan, and is the pluckiest little thing, in spite of her delicate little face and her innocent eyes. She has a stepmother, who isn't so bad, but she is poor, and can't do very much for Polly."
Then she went on to tell of Polly's ambitions, and of how she wanted to make her way in the world by her own efforts, so Cordelia's sympathies were enlisted, and before the evening was over, half the junior class looked upon Polly as a heroine and were prepared to adore her.
The next triumph for the girl was when Becky sent word that she had seen Miss Thurston and that she would be delighted if the girls could bring Polly to her, the sooner the better. She needed just such a model for a set of illustrations she was about to begin. So Janet raced off to the little bare attic to tell its occupant of this new opportunity.