So on that first Friday evening, upon leaving school, Elizabeth promised herself that she would “get square” with those “two nobodys” in short order! She would show those other girls at Mrs. Wellington’s just who she was, and why they should have kept her as their leader!
But the western girls were not shamming their lovable characters, and as time went on, their companions appreciated, more and more, the sterling qualities in their chosen leaders. Thus Elizabeth found it no easy task to influence the girls against them.
October passed and November began, with the girls at Mrs. Wellington’s planning for a Thanksgiving entertainment to close their school for the holiday. Here Polly was discounted, as she had never taken part in amateur theatricals, and knew nothing about them. Had anyone asked her to differentiate between the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian or Composite order of classic periods of architecture, she could have described either, or all of them, almost as well as Mr. Fabian himself could do. But the scholars at Mrs. Wellington’s never dreamed of Polly’s ambition and knowledge along such lines of study.
So Elizabeth found herself the one to whom everyone appealed about costumes, parts, and the general management of affairs. Eleanor resented the obvious fact that she was completely ignored when the various important parts were distributed, but Polly never gave it a thought.
“We couldn’t accept a part, anyway, Nolla, with all the time we have planned to give to exhibitions and lectures, this month,” Polly reminded her.
“And your Daddy will be visiting New York that last week, Nolla, and you must devote your spare time to his entertainment—not be fussing with a lot of girls over a silly poem,” added Anne.
Thus the sharp sting was withdrawn and Eleanor forgot all about her injured feelings. But Elizabeth Dalken believed she was merely pretending that she felt no grudge against the Director of the Play. And it gave Elizabeth great satisfaction to believe she had actually offended the two popular western girls.
During November afternoons, and on several evenings, Mr. Fabian took the three friends to the Metropolitan Museum where wonderful exhibits of private collections were given. Here every New Yorker was admitted free to see genuine antiques of furniture, paintings, tapestries and rugs, plate and ornaments. And with such a marvelous judge to escort them about and explain details that might have escaped other than his knowing eye, Anne and her two charges felt well repaid for their time. It proved not only instructive but very absorbing—these personal talks with Mr. Fabian about the rare and ancient articles.
Valuable volumes treating on subjects which most aspirants of art are acquainted with, began to fill the shelves in the rooms on the first floor of the stable-studio; and quite often, Mr. Fabian brought in a “treasure” he had picked up at a second-hand book shop. He would read aloud in a cultivated voice, such bits as he thought would interest young and ambitious girls. Then, after he had bid his hostesses good-night, he generally left the volume behind.
Perhaps the very fact that Polly and Eleanor seemed to be apart from the other school-girls and their pastimes, made them all the more desirable to court. Not but that the two western girls liked fun and frolic as much as anyone, but they seemed always to have engagements with people the school-girls had never met, nor heard of.