“Oh, may I?” exclaimed Pamela, lifting it from the broad top of the bookcase. And while the conversation flowed on she examined the figurine, fondly noting every graceful line.
No one who looked at Pamela could fail to comprehend that she must be more or less stinted for money. She herself would have told you, had you asked her, that she knew that her gray gown was of rather dowdy make, although she might not have realized as clearly as the onlooker just where the seams were crooked, or in what particular places the skirt hung unevenly. Pamela had at the best a limited wardrobe, and her village dressmaker had not kept pace with city styles. Pamela herself, unskilled with the needle, even when she knew that a garment might be improved, had not the ability to make the change. She consoled herself with the thought that no one in Cambridge was likely to notice her. She was too obscure to be criticised. She had always admired Julia’s gowns, so pretty and so simple, yet with the hall-mark of good workmanship. Pamela was a lover of beauty in every form, and she now wished vaguely, as she watched Ruth moving about the room, that she herself possessed at least one gown that she could wear as gracefully as Ruth wore hers. Ruth was giving little touches to the furniture, moving one chair farther from the fire, pulling another out of a corner. Julia had excused herself for a moment to rearrange her hair in the inner room, “in case,” she said, “that we should have some more critical callers.”
Hardly had she left when there came a loud rapping at the door.
“Come in!” cried Ruth. “It must be Percy Colton. He often runs up after school,” she added in an aside to Pamela.
The door was thrown open with a bang, and there on the threshold stood Clarissa, tall, almost overpoweringly tall, with a smile on her face, a flush of crimson on her cheeks, and a winter coat of a much brighter crimson on her back. Two other girls were with her, whom she immediately introduced to Ruth as Miss Burlap, of Kansas, and Miss Creighton, of Maine.
“It is so much better,” she said, immediately explaining, “to know from just what State a girl comes. You know what to talk about from the start, and you can account sooner for her peculiarities.”
Ruth smiled at this sally, although she was not inclined to approve much that Clarissa said or did, and she was glad to see Julia emerging from the bedroom. Julia’s greeting was very cordial to Clarissa and her companions, and Clarissa when she caught sight of Pamela greeted her as a long-lost friend.
Hardly, however, was the interchange of greetings over when the half-open door was pushed open wider. “More visitors!” exclaimed Ruth. “How exciting!”
Mrs. Blair entered Julia’s study with lorgnette raised. The action was involuntary. She had found the stairway at Mrs. Colton’s rather narrower than stairways she was accustomed to, and had used the lorgnette to help her find her way. Julia hastened forward to greet her, while Edith and Brenda, with less ceremony, pushed past Mrs. Blair into the centre of the room.
“Why, how perfectly delightful!” cried Ruth, and “What a surprise!” said Julia; and the room which a few minutes before had seemed large and comparatively quiet now appeared small, crowded, and bustling. The four girls who knew one another best were chattering, and the four other girls, Pamela, Clarissa, and the two friends of the latter, tried not to show too much interest in the trio that had just entered. Mrs. Blair continued to survey the scene through her lorgnette until she had seated herself in an easy-chair.