“When the wagon comes back from taking the boxes over, send Aunty back in it.”
Polly hugged her joyously.
“Whatever should we do, Grandma,” she cried, “without you to solve things for us. Here I’ve been thinking we’d have to blindfold her the way they do elephants to coax them on board a ship. No, thanks, I don’t care for any shortcake,” this to the pretty waitress, as she was about to place a goodly slice beside her plate. “I must hurry. Crullers, dear, you may have it all.”
“Polly,” whispered Isabel, as they were leaving the long dining-room, “those two girls at that little table, over near the veranda doors, have been looking at us ever since we came in.”
“Maybe they like us,” Polly said, happily. She always took the cheeriest view of everything as a matter of course. As the Admiral and his fleet of clipper builts, as he called them, passed the table Isabel had mentioned, Polly looked at the girls seated there, quite frankly and interestedly. There was no doubt but what they were sisters, and Polly liked them at first sight. The elder was about sixteen, and the younger seemed to be about Polly’s age.
“I wonder who they are,” Isabel said, when they were up in the long, cool, double parlors. “I like them and I wish we could get acquainted with them before we leave. They’re very well dressed, Polly.”
Polly laughed at the serious, earnest tone.
“Isabel always judges people by their raiment,” she declared. “I know if she met John the Baptist in camel’s hair, and Peter Pan in white flannels like the Senator wore, she would drop Peter a gracious courtesy, and not notice anyone else at all.”
“Oh, Polly, I would,” cried Isabel. “I am not as bad as that, but I do believe that clothes show character, just as cleanliness or good manners do. I have seen ever so many persons whose clothes may have cost lots of money, but they looked like patchwork quilts. These girls didn’t. They were dressed with taste, and their dresses were hand embroidered linen too. I do wonder who they are. I like the way they do their hair, braided, then tied up Dutch fashion with two big bows.”
“Do you want yours that way, you blessed old looking-glass?” Polly crossed over to where Isabel sat, and began to arrange her long fair braids in the same fashion. “It’s easy enough. All you do is cross them over, so, and then tie your ribbon on, and let it flutter a little, like a butterfly bow. You need very wide ribbon to make it look right. There, now observe yourself, Lady Vanitas.”