"I saw her expression when she first saw me, and after that I noticed that she seemed to be thinking of something very intently; while we were drinking tea, it was. I am sure she planned it all out then."
"Well, if she did," said Janet lightly, "it will be ever so much more fun. Don't feel sensitive about it, Polly, but take the good the gods send without asking why it was sent."
"Oh, I do that," said Polly happily, "and if I looked for motives, I should find that all those that inspired my friends were such as I can only wonder at and be thankful for."
After that, Polly went regularly to Miss Thurston, and one day came to the girls with glowing cheeks and beaming eyes. She had discovered another revenue. Mrs. Thurston expected to go abroad and was deficient in German. When she heard of Polly's familiarity with the language, she begged that she would combine the work of model with that of teacher, and so Polly would earn more than double. "I am the luckiest girl that ever lived," she said.
"And the sweetest," said Janet, kissing her. Janet, it may be said, was fairly in love with the little country maid, and often said she wished she could employ her to sit for her. "I'd like nothing better than to gaze at her by the hour," she told Teddy. "I think I'll turn artist and have her for a perpetual model."
"As if one could turn artist who has no talent for it," said the literal Teddy.
But in spite of Polly's luck the girl did not make more than enough for her expenses, and found it hard to cover those, modest as she tried to make them. The old black hat and the frayed-at-edges jacket were still in evidence. Only on the afternoons when she went to Miss Thurston was Polly a grand lady, in gorgeous street attire, in dainty silken house gowns, or ravishing evening costume. Once or twice Janet had beheld her thus transfigured and had come home with a cry against fate for so allowing Polly's charms to be hidden from the world.
"In proper clothes, the child could make her fortune," she said. "When I think of creatures like that awful Pauline Robinson with a complexion like a stable sponge, eyes like boiled onions and a figure like a round-shouldered beanpole, with all her elegant clothes hung on her, I can't help railing at fate."
"But consider the awfulness of the spectacle presented by Pauline in Polly's clothes," said Teddy.
"I can't consider that," said Janet, "it is too terrible to contemplate."