The girl stared at him in amazement. She had never heard of anyone walking to Paulding. “Five miles a day!” she exclaimed.
“Certainly. That’s the least any healthy person ought to do,” he said firmly. “Are you game?”
Whereupon Betty Pogany proved that he was right as to her mental suppleness.
“Yes, sir, I’m game,” she said seriously.
“And you will—go in for it all?” he cried in genuine excitement.
“Yes, sir, all,” she declared demurely.
CHAPTER V
AS Betty Pogany left the Phillips house, unconsciously she walked faster than she ever walked unless Aunt Sarah had kept her and she was in danger of being late for school. In that case, she teetered along in rather absurd fashion; but to-day excitement lent her wings that seemed to lift the weight from the high-heeled boots. She passed the lane where the Finnemores lived without halting, though she felt a bit troubled in that, with an hour to spare before tea-time, she did not stop to see how Tommy’s magic might be progressing. Arriving home, she shut herself in her own chamber: and after tea, as soon as she had washed up, she fled to the same refuge. She took some stockings with her, and she mended them. But she walked so little that there were few stitches to be made with darning cotton, and she had all the time she needed for finer stitches with sewing silk.
Breakfast was an hour later on Sunday mornings, but Betty rose at the usual week-day hour. She had waked with a thrill of expectancy that reminded her of Christmas mornings when she was very small and her mother was alive. In spite of the change that the morning was to institute, she dressed more quickly than ever. And when she was ready to go down to help Aunt Sarah with the breakfast, the sense of freedom Mr. Meadowcroft had predicted was already sufficient to induce her to do unconsciously something she hadn’t done in years. She ran downstairs.
Betty had been well instructed in sewing as in all domestic and sedentary matters, and she was very clever with her needle. She had cut off her long skirt and hemmed it neatly and it was now well above the tops of her boots. She had also had to let it out several inches at the waist, for she had discarded the stays which her aunt had compelled her to adopt two years before. Neither would the leather belt meet under the new conditions, and she substituted a soft silk sash she had worn as a child, tying it in a graceful knot at the side. She couldn’t determine in the small mirror above her dresser how different her figure looked already. Naturally square and solid rather than fat, the new, almost straight lines it took were a vast improvement over the forced and ugly curves which the stays had induced. But she felt the freedom, and she noticed the difference when she arranged her hair. It was fair and abundant and ready to curl. She parted it and, drawing it back less rigidly than commonly, braided it, and tied the end with a ribbon that was another treasure saved from childhood. The girl never consulted a mirror except to see if she were tidy, and she couldn’t remember facing one with any sensation other than chagrin or at least indifference. Now, she hardly understood the thrill she felt as she looked wonderingly at the reflected vision with soft yellow hair waving about a pink and white face and a thick bright plait hanging over her shoulders to her waist. She had ripped the standing collar from her blouse and substituted a round turnover collar and tie that took away the primness, and when she daringly jabbed a little silver pin in the tie, the transformation was complete. As Betty Pogany ran down the stairs she didn’t look, as she had looked yesterday and the day before, an overgrown young woman. She looked what she really was—a big little girl. And if in truth she resembled a baby giant, it was an attractive, perhaps even a charming baby giant.