It was much too large every way, but Mrs. Biggs lapped it in front and lapped it behind, and said the length would not matter, as Eloise could only walk with her knee in a chair and could hold up one side. Eloise knew she was a fright, but felt that she did not care, until Mrs. Biggs told her of the hat which the lady from Crompton Place had sent her, and that Sarah had said the young gentlemen would probably call.
"I've been thinking after all," she continued, "that it is better to be up. The committee man, Mr. Bills, who hired you, will call, and you can't see him and the young men here. I'm a respectable woman, and have boarded the teachers off and on for twenty years,—all, in fact, except Ruby Ann, who has a home of her own,—and I can't have my character compromised now by inviting men folks into a bedroom. You must come down to the parlor. There's a bed-lounge there which I can make up at night, and it'll save me a pile of steps coming upstairs."
"How am I to get there?" Eloise asked in dismay, and Mrs. Biggs replied, "It'll be a chore, I guess, but you can do it. I did when my ankle was bad. I took some strong coffee, same as I brought you, had my foot done up, and slid downstairs, one at a time, with my lame laig straight out. I can't say it didn't hurt, for it did, but I had to grin and bear it. Christian Science nor mind cure wasn't invented then, or I should of used 'em, and said my ankle wasn't sprained. There's plenty of nice people believes 'em now. You can try 'em on, and we'll manage somehow."
Eloise was appalled at the thought of going downstairs to meet people, and especially the young men from Crompton, clad in that spotted brown and white gown, with nothing to relieve its ugliness, not even a collar, for the one she had worn the previous day was past being worn again until it had been laundered. She looked at her handkerchief. That, too, was impossible.
"Mrs. Biggs," she said at last, "have you a handkerchief you can loan me?"
"To be sure! To be sure! Half a dozen, if you like," Mrs. Biggs answered, hurrying from the room, and soon returning with a handkerchief large enough for a dinner napkin.
It was coarse and half-cotton, but it was clean, and Eloise tied it around her neck, greatly to Mrs. Biggs's surprise.
"Oh," she said, "you wanted it for that? Why not have a lace ruffle? I'll get one in a jiffy."
Eloise declined the ruffle. The handkerchief was bad enough, but a lace ruffle with that gown would have been worse.
"Now, I'll call Tim to go in front and keep you from falling. He is kind of awkward, but I'll go behind and stiddy you, and you grit your teeth and put on the mind cure, and down we go," Mrs. Biggs said, calling Tim, who came shambling up the stairs, and laughed aloud when he saw Eloise wrapped in his mother's gown.