“A young lady sixteen years old giving occasion to me to use them! Paula Pickel, I should think you would be ashamed of yourself! You would if you knew how you were looking at this very minute.”
“Why? What?” asked the elder girl, anxiously, rising and crossing to the tiny mirror. “I do wish Aunt Ruth would let us have something bigger than this to use! It’s so small that I cannot see more than half of my head at one time!”
“Do as I do,” laughed Octave; “dress yourself before the wardrobe door.” And suiting the action to the word, the merry girl placed herself in front of the door in question and gravely began to brush and freshen her long, tangled hair.
She had finished and had put on a clean gown, ready for the supper table, for which her healthy appetite was also ready, long before Paula had ceased twisting and turning about before the little glass to see what was amiss with herself.
“I don’t see anything, Octave. What was it that was wrong?” she cried, as her sister went dancing and singing out of the room. “Stop, and do tell me!”
“I daren’t!”
“Why?”
“You’d say, ‘Octave, Octave!’ in that reproachful tone of yours; and how should I ever bear it?”
“Oh, you—”
“Darling,—I know it; I realize it. Seriously, sweetheart, there was nothing wrong with your appearance, only—”