Polly in New York

by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

“If you’ll think this over quietly, and without prejudice, I’m sure you’ll agree that I am just and right in my stand.”

That evening, Eleanor apologised to Anne and Polly for her thoughtless impulse that day, and fervently prayed that she never be tempted to open her lips again.

It was not Polly’s nature to sulk or remember unpleasant episodes, so everything went along smoothly after that first day at school.

Tuesday evening Mr. Fabian called, and was welcomed to his erstwhile fireside. During that visit, it developed that he had accepted an offer which several of his friends had urged upon him. He was to teach, three times a week, a class in art designing at Cooper Union Institute. And before he said good-night to the ladies, it had been suggested and settled, that Polly and Eleanor were to join the evening classes on the three nights a week that their friend taught at the school.

Mrs. Stewart worried lest the girls would be wearing themselves out with too much study. But it was found that the work in the art classes under Mr. Fabian’s watchful eye, was a pleasure rather than a study or work.

Thus they started to build on a firm foundation, and by degrees they mastered the rudiments of geometrical drawing, then went on to ornamental designing, next taking up the study of architecture in so far as it applied to interior decorating, and at the end of the year they were drawing free hand and perspective sketches. But that was not until the school term was almost over.

By the end of the first week at Mrs. Wellington’s school, the girls had chosen their friends for the term. It was most interesting to Anne to note that a certain social element looked up to Eleanor as their natural leader, while the quiet persistent sort silently fell in line with Polly. Both girls were admired and heartily liked, by teachers as well as scholars, but there was one disturbing young lady who resented the usurping of her former undisputed sway in the school by the two new-comers.

Elizabeth Dalken was the pretty, but vain daughter of a superficial society woman who thought of nothing but self-indulgence, leaving the training of her child to Fate. Hence, Elizabeth was the usual product: selfish, proud, arrogant and hypocritical. She was but fifteen, yet she could slyly cheat at bridge, smoke her mother’s cigarettes, and flirt with the men who frequented her home, as cleverly as her mother could.

For two previous years she had taken the reins of leadership at Wellington’s school and she had returned the third Fall fully expecting to resume her authority.

To learn that a western ranch-girl without a record in “Who’s Who,” and a mere Chicago Miss, governed her former subjects, turned Elizabeth white with rage. She could say nothing about it, however, without starting her school friends’ teasing and laughing at her downfall. And she could not leave the school, because her mother had deserted her husband. He was the cashier for all the luxuries Mrs. Dalken and her daughter indulged themselves in, and he had selected Wellington’s school for the girl, and had paid the tuition fee in advance, so it stood to reason that he would not consent to a change, now, on account of her jealousy.