“Oh, if mine grow out as long as that, of course I shall plait them and tie them up with blue ribbons.”
But it was not always admiration to which she treated her patron.
She was once twitted quite groundlessly with feeling herself obliged to “mind” Miss Mar.
“Yes,” she said, laughing a little wickedly. “I must, you see. She’s so massive. Just look at her shoulders. Look at her hips. Even her hair is massive. See what wobs it goes into.” This conversation took place in the cloak-room. “Everything about her is so big, it scares a little person like me. Look at that hat. You’d know it must belong to Miss Mar. If it was anybody else’s it would be a parasol. But you can tell it’s a hat because it’s got an elastic instead of a stick. And just look at the size of that elastic. Why, it’s as broad as my garter.”
Now and then she would startle Hildegarde’s self-possession by an outburst of torrential affection. And so it came about that in spite of Bella’s blithe impertinence, Hildegarde even in those early days thought of her with sympathy as a lonely little being who was in reality very grateful for a big girl’s friendship. She would follow at Hildegarde’s heels like a pet dog, walk with her down to the gate every day after school, and invent one ingenious pretext after another to keep Hildegarde standing there a moment longer. Sometimes, when at last she said “good-by,” there was not regret alone but tears as well in Bella’s pretty eyes.
“It must have been a little girl at boarding-school that found out Friday was an unlucky day,” she announced on one occasion. “It’s the miserablest, blackest day of the week. Yes it is, Miss Mar. It’s just hellish.”
“Why, Bella Wayne! What awful language.”
“Well, you have to get hold of awful language when you’re thinking of an awful thing. All to-night, and all to-morrow, and all to-morrow night, and all Sunday, and all Sunday night, to live through before I see you again!” The small face worked with suppressed emotion, the small mind with suppressed arithmetic. Both eventually found outward expression. “Sixty-six hours!” she said, while two tears rolled out of her eyes. “Sixty-six hours till you’re back here again. I don’t honestly think I can bear it this time. I shall die. I know I shall. I feel very strange already. Would you care if I died? W-would you come to the funeral?” She choked. “W-what would you wear? You’d look p-perfectly bee-yew-tiful in black. Do wear black. Oh, I wish I was dead. It would be so nice to see how you look in black.”
Hildegarde was touched to find how wildly delighted the homesick little girl was at the idea of being invited to spend Saturday afternoon at the Mars—a little anxious, too, was Miss Mar, lest the occasion should not come up to such ecstatic expectation. Not that the Mar house was at all the forlorn and dingy place it had been in the days when Mrs. Mar struggled alone, with a scant income and three babies. The general impression was that the Mar boys already contributed generously to the family resources. But the fact was that their mother was ingeniously making the very most of what “the boys” added to the common purse. The amount was as yet quite trifling—“of necessity,” she would have added, for they were both young men who looked ahead. But it was really to Hildegarde that the little house owed its air of immaculate freshness and good taste. If she couldn’t play or sing, she could paint—bookshelves, the floors, even the woodwork. Several years ago she proved that she could paper a room. She managed to cover the old furniture with charming chintz “for a song,” and she made curtains out of nothing at all. No one could arrange flowers better or grow them half so well. When she was given money for her clothes, she often spent it on something for the house. Not fully realizing her genius for domestic affairs, she told herself the reason she did all this was to make the house pretty “for when Jack comes back.” He might arrive quite suddenly. He did everything without warning. I may come home from school any day to find him here! Oh, it lent a wonderful zest to life to remember that.
Bella was pleased to like Miss Mar’s garden immensely, but even more she liked Miss Mar’s room, with its white curtains and dimity-covered toilet-table, and the scant and simple furniture that looked so nice and fresh since Hildegarde had herself enameled it. When the little visitor looked round with that quick-glancing admiration and said: “Oh, it’s much prettier than mine at home.”