CHAPTER X
MAGIC LANTERNS
Two weeks of constant hustle, excitement and preparation passed by until at last came—the big night!
It was seven o'clock and Betty had started to dress. Mechanically, with fingers that shook a little from excitement, she went through the early stages of the process, until it was time to slip into the pretty filmy lace dress she was to wear for the first part of the evening.
Then her eyes met the reflected ones in the mirror, and she stopped short, wondering "if this were really I." She was very sure that that very pretty girl in the mirror, with the flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes, could never be the Betty Nelson she had grown up with—it could not be! And yet she thrilled with a strange new happiness. It was so good to be pretty.
Then she drew a deep breath, and turned away with a little rippling laugh at herself.
"Betty Nelson," she scolded, slipping the pretty dress over her head, and keeping her eyes severely away from the mirror, "you'll be getting conceited next; and if there's anything I hate, it's a conceited person."
At a quarter of eight there came a ring at the door bell, and Betty's heart missed a beat. It proved to be only Allen, however—but, strange as it may seem, that fact did not seem to improve the behavior of her heart in the least.
As for Allen, he simply stood and stared, as a transformed Betty ran down the stairs toward him.
"Oh, Allen, I'm so glad it was only you," she said, holding out her hands to him—which he seemed by no means reluctant to take. "I was so hoping you'd get here before the rest. There are one or two things I want to talk over with you."