“La! the naughty old gentleman,” pouts Miss Prue. “I must be careful of him.”
She assumed a face of copy-book propriety that is invariably worn with a pinafore and plaited hair at a seminary for young ladies. Then she turned to the maid and said:
“Now, Emblem, touch my eyes up. And improve my cheeks a little.”
Mrs. Polly did as she was bid; dabbed the powder on daintily and subtly, made her a provoking dimple with uncommon art, pencilled her brows arch and swarthy, then heated a hairpin in the candle and curled her eye-lashes into a provoking crispness, a trick she had borrowed from the French. Then she selected a new robe for her, even more elegant than the one she wore, and while the maid, to give her greater ease and comfort in the wearing of it, unpicked a portion of the bodice and concealed the opened seams by cunning contrivances of lace, Miss Prue assiduously practised the poise and movements of her form. For an hour she went up the room and down the room under my direction, with skirts gracefully lifted now in two fingers of one hand, now in two fingers of the other. And so intelligent and persistent was she that soon she seemed to sail across the floor with the lofty imperious motion of a woman of quality.
Thereafter she besieged the mirror; to practise smiling, be it said. Lo! at the first trial there was a bewitching dimple at the left corner of her mouth revealed. And those lips, how red they were, and how inviting! What may not red ochre do? Such illumination of those doors of wit looked seducing, irresistible. Later, she tried a little trill of laughter. What a fluted woodnote did she make of it! Next she tried a little trill and a smile together. The result was really too adorable. But to my surprise Miss Prue frowned and shook her pretty, wicked head.
“Bab,” says she, “it will not do, dear. I showed my teeth, and one is missing, exactly in the middle of the upper jaw. You have not a tooth that you could lend me, darling? Besides, two other prominent members are blackened with decay. ’Twere best I kept my lips close. And wearing ’em so tight, I must be careful lest I suck the paint off.”
“Prue,” says I severely, “you are more precautious than myself when I am robing and posturing for a conquest. Forbear, my girl, for this is vanity.”
At this she winced, and palpably. I held my sides for laughter when I heard the reason why.
“Bab,” says she, “when you call me girl, do you know it hurts quite horribly?”
“Girl, girl!” cries I, with great emphasis.