“I don’t believe so,” said Gwen composedly. “They had to alter the house dress we got ready-made. Still, it doesn’t matter for those girls.”
“Gwendoline Graham, you are enough to provoke a saint! Of all the girls in school, they are the ones who would notice most, and they have the most money,” cried Gladys.
“And are the most vulgar and the stupidest about their lessons,” finished Gwen. “I don’t see why you mind what such people think. However, I’ll go up and see what I can do for Jan.” And she arose, putting aside her lap tablet with the air of a martyr.
“She can’t wear anything of yours; she isn’t tall enough, and they would know our things, anyway,” said Gladys. “I suppose we’ve just got to let her come in that shabby best dress of hers. But do tell her not to say or do anything queer, or tell any of those stories she tells the children about riding broncos and playing Indian in the fields—no, prairies! Make her understand she has to be like other people, and these are swell girls.”
“If she’s used to wearing feathers and war-paint we can’t make her take to civilization right off—no Indian does that,” said Gwen wickedly, for Gladys never could grasp satire. “But, you know, I think she has nice manners, simple and not as if she thought of herself. And the Hammonds and Floss Gilsey are more swollen than swell.” And with this parting witticism, Gwen ran up the hall.
“Jan, Jan, here are three girls come to call on you,” she said, putting her lips to her cousin’s door. “Hurry up, and come down to see them.”
Jan opened her door at once. She was writing a long letter home, and her cheeks were too red to indicate perfect peace of mind.
“I’ll just pumice-stone this ink stain off my finger,” she said, “and then I’m ready. If ever I sympathized with any one, it was with Mr. Boffin when he told John Rokesmith he didn’t see what he did with the ink to keep so neat when he wrote. I’m ashamed of myself, and mamma says I ought to be, but I can not keep my fingers—this middle one, anyway—free from ink when I write. I guess I get so interested I dive down to the bottom of the ink-well without knowing it. Who are these girls?” As she had talked, Janet had scrubbed energetically, and now turned to go down with Gwendoline, without any additional prinking beyond a hasty smooth of her rebellious hair. Her dress was a blue-serge skirt and a cotton shirt-waist, although it was October; it never occurred to her, used as she was to seeing her girl friends in a girlish manner, that anything more was required of her in the matter of toilet.
Gwen eyed her quizzically, thinking with amusement and annoyance of what these would-be fine ladies down-stairs, who could not have understood Jan’s reference to Dickens, would say if she let her go down thus. It was dawning upon Gwen’s inquiring mind that many things in the world were not quite as they should be, and that the scales in which lots of people weighed other people and things were badly weighted on one side.
“I am afraid you will have to put on your bestest gown, Jan,” she said. “They would probably drop dead if they saw you no more fixed up than that, and it would be a nuisance to have to prove they weren’t murdered here. Get out your finest things, and I’ll help you.”