Because ’twould drive my luck away.’
And it goes on to tell how they all made fun of her, but she sat still and learned her lessons with a will. And at the end she got the prize.”
“I see. But that was only for one day, and you have gone on all your life sitting still and learning your lessons with a will, as it were,” he returned. “Well, you’re mighty lucky that it isn’t too late to change. You can turn your jacket right side out at once and start out to-morrow morning doing exactly what other girls of twelve do.”
Betty Pogany gasped. “But—O, how could I?” she cried.
“O, just resume—begin, I should say,” he returned coolly.
“But even if I knew how, I couldn’t, honestly, Mr. Meadowcroft,” she declared mournfully. “The other girls are all—well, sort of paired off by now, and I always only watch. And I can’t walk fast and they wouldn’t want me tagging on. And I can’t act bad in school time, because always being so good. Miss Sherman would think I was terrible. And I might be expelled. And even if I didn’t want to go to the high school, there’s father,—and O. Aunt Sarah!”
“Well, you needn’t be a naughty girl. Just a natural, lively girl that has a jolly time every day is what I want you to turn into.”
Betty glanced helplessly at her tight boots. Meadowcroft looked hard at her.
“Suppose you begin by letting down your hair,” he suggested. “Wear it in a tail or in curls, you know, and cut off a number of inches from your skirts. Then get some low-heeled, round-toed, comfortable shoes and—for heaven’s sake take off that horribly tight belt and never put it on again. Isn’t there some sort of gown you can wear that doesn’t have to be spliced that way?” On a sudden he remembered Tommy’s cousin in Jersey. “Couldn’t you get a sailor-suit?” he suggested.
“A Peter Thompson?” cried the girl with shining eyes. “O, how I should love one! But—could I, do you think? Wouldn’t it look—silly?”