Persis would not have been Persis had she failed to have something to suggest. Whether her businesslike methods aided in bringing matters to a focus, or whether the change was due to a conscience-stricken reaction on the part of the representative women of Clematis, it is certain that the deliberations of the body were not again side-tracked by the intrusion of personal matters. The business of the afternoon was transacted with a rapidity putting to shame some more pretentious conventions, the women wisely refusing to be hampered or restricted by the tangles of parliamentary law, in which, as every one knows, much really important legislation is strangled.
When the meeting adjourned at quarter of six, an hour which sent prudent housewives scurrying homeward, Mrs. Sophia Warren was the duly elected president of the Clematis Woman's Club, while Susan Fitzgerald had accepted the duties of secretary of the organization. The members had voted to meet weekly, taking up the study of English literature, and current events, the two subjects to divide the program equally. The club was to hold itself in readiness to grapple with questions of civic improvement, and already a committee had been appointed to arrange for a Harvest Home Festival at the county almshouse for the edification of the inmates. It really began to look as if the horizon of a number of people would be enlarged and the community as a whole uplifted, with or without its consent.
CHAPTER V
DIANTHA GROWS UP.
Now that Annabel Sinclair had no immediate use for Persis' services, Diantha's wardrobe could receive attention. The girl presented herself at the dressmaker's late one afternoon, her smooth forehead disfigured by an irritated frown, her mouth resolutely unsmiling. Under one arm she carried a roll of cheap white lawn. Annabel frequently commented on the uselessness of buying expensive materials for a girl who grew as rapidly as Diantha, though the reasonableness of this contention was slightly discounted by her recognized ability to demonstrate that the cream of things was invariably her portion, while an all-wise Providence had obviously designed the skimmed milk for the rest of the world.
Her eyes upon the girl's averted face, Persis measured off the coarse stuff, using her arm as a yard-stick. "Hm! Even with skirts as skimpy as they are now, this won't be enough by a yard and a half. Better call it two yards. It's high time your skirts were coming down where they belong. You can't stay a little girl forever."
Some magic had erased the fretful pucker between Diantha's brows. The grim ungirlish compression of her lips softened into angelic mildness. As she turned upon Persis, she looked an older sister of the Sistine cherubs.
"How long—about how long do you think it had better be, Miss Persis?"
"I should say"—Persis looked her over with an impersonal air, lending weight to the resulting judgment—"I should say about to your shoe-tops."
Had she guessed the consequences of such an expression of opinion, she might have modified her verdict or at least held it in reserve. A tempest swept the room. Persis was seized, whirled this way and then that, hugged, kissed, forced to join in a delirious two-step. With scarcely breath to protest, powerless in the grip of the storm she had herself evoked, she finally came to anchor between the secretary and the armchair, Diantha still holding her fast.