“Did I ever tell you of the awful thing which happened to me last winter?” said the girl with the classic profile. “I believe not, though; we hadn’t started our club then. Well, I just had to have a new gown, and I was so afraid that my father wouldn’t give it to me that I got it without saying a word to him. I knew that even if there was a cyclone over the bill I’d have the gown anyhow. That being the case, I got a much handsomer one than I would have chosen under other circumstances.”
“Quite right,” said the president; “if there must be an unpleasant scene, better have it over something which will fully repay one.”
“So I thought. Well, the gown only came home the evening of my sister’s dance; and I really wanted to enjoy that, so I decided not to give papa the bill until the next day, though the dressmaker was in a great hurry for her money.”
“They always are,” sighed the president.
“Yes. I was having a lovely time until supper was served, and then Mr. Rocksby emptied a plate of lobster salad over the whole front of my new gown! Florence was near; she never got farther away from him than—than she could help; and—well, you all know how he admires amiability! He apologized profusely, and I, smilingly, said, ‘Oh, it doesn’t make the least difference. The gown is of no value at all, and I should probably never have worn it again, anyhow.’”
“How lovely of you!” said the blue-eyed girl. “It must have made a deep impression upon him.”
“H’m, I don’t know about that; but it did upon me. I happened to turn my head just then, and papa was at my elbow! I’d rather not tell you the things he said when I gave him the bill for that gown the next morning!”
“We can all guess,” said the blue-eyed girl, with a shudder. “But wasn’t Mr. Rocksby awfully nice to you after that?”
“No, he wasn’t. He said that the girl who cared nothing for the destruction of such a handsome gown was too extravagant to make a good wife for a poor man! And the hardest part of it all was the fact that he must have lots of money, else he never on earth would speak of himself as ‘a poor man!’”
“Let us hope your father never found that out,” said the president, in devout tones.