“Thanks, that’s fine,” said Hinpoha, holding out her hand for the paints.
“It needs something more,” said Sally slowly, squinting at Hinpoha’s neck. “Do you mind if I use any more paint?”
“Go as far as you like,” said Hinpoha, surprised into flippancy, “let your conscience be your guide!”
Sally made swift dabs at the little color squares, her face all puckered up in a deep frown of concentration.
“Now, how do you like it?” she asked anxiously, after a few minutes, leading Hinpoha to the mirror.
Hinpoha says she screamed right out when she looked, she was so surprised and delighted. For on the front of the band Sally had painted the most wonderful ornament. It was an enormous ruby, set in a gold frame, the design of which simply took your breath away. How she ever did it with the colors in Hinpoha’s box is beyond us.
“Oh, wonderful!” raved Hinpoha, hugging Sally in her extravagant way. “I can’t wait until the girls see it. Won’t I make a sensation, though! Come to the party, won’t you please, Sally? We’d love to have you.”
Sally shook her head and prepared to depart. “I have to go,” she said with a return to her old brusque manner. “I have another engagement.”
But Hinpoha saw the wistful look that came into her face and she knew that Sally’s “other engagement” was waiting on table in the boarding house where she lived.
Hinpoha’s painted jewelry created a sensation all right. Cries of admiration rose on every side, and the fact that the stony-faced Sally Prindle had done it only added to the sensation. Who would ever have suspected that the most inartistic-looking girl in the whole college had such a talent up her sleeve?