"We'll travel in Europe for a year or two," she said to me, "and when we come back we'll just show Denver society people that we're somebody."
That was all she thought of in the beginning, but when we'd gone East to Chicago for a change, and were staying at a big hotel there, a new idea came into her head. Partly it was from seeing so many smart-looking young women having a good time every minute of their lives, and feeling what was the use of being free to enjoy herself at last, with plenty of money, when she was dowdy and not so very young any more? (I could tell just what was in her mind by the wistful way she looked at gorgeous ladies who had the air of owning the world, with a fence around it.) And partly it was seeing an advertisement in a newspaper.
Mamma didn't mention the advertisement to me at first. But when she'd been away one morning alone on a secret errand she stammered and fidgetted a little, and said she had something to explain to me. Then it all came out.
She'd been to call on a wonderful French madame who could make a woman of thirty-eight (that's Mamma's Bible age) look twenty-five, and she hoped I wouldn't lose respect for her as my mother or think her frivolous and horrid if she put herself into the madame's hands for a few weeks. I couldn't help laughing, but Mamma cried, and said that she'd never had a real good time since she was grown up. She did long to have one at last, very much, if only I'd let her do it in peace.
I stopped laughing and almost cried, myself; but I didn't let her see that I wanted to. Instead, I asked what would be the sense of looking twenty-five, anyhow, when everybody would know she must be more, with a daughter going on seventeen.
Mamma hadn't thought of that. She seemed years older than ever for a minute; and then she put her hand in mine. Hers was as cold as ice. "Would you mind going back a little, darling?" she asked. "It would be so kind and sweet of you, and it would make all the difference to me."
"Going back?" I repeated. "Whatever do you mean?"
It made her dreadfully nervous to explain, because she was afraid I'd poke fun at her, but she did get out the idea finally. "Going back" was to bring on my second childhood prematurely. Thirteen was a nice age, she thought, because many girls get their full growth then; and if I wasn't more than thirteen she could begin life over again at twenty-nine.
"What, let down my hair and wear my dresses short?" I asked.
She admitted that was what I'd have to do.