"Mercy!" exclaimed the visitor. "What ails the animal?"
"Oh, he's glad too," answered David—"glad, you know, Bab was found!" Even the dowager had to laugh.
But David always was forgiven. His aunt's cronies all adored him. Pink-cheeked little old ladies in bonnets would simper and smile and look arch when he laughed and joked with them; tall, grenadier-like females, classic dowagers, would titter and shake and look rollicking when he poked good-natured fun at their foibles. He had, indeed, to him a human, friendly side that few who came near him could resist; and day by day Bab felt her liking grow for her crippled cousin—a sunny, cheerful figure, the most courageous she had ever known. However, that was but a part of it. As time went on and those first days turned themselves into weeks Bab began to realize how much David had done and still was doing for her. His consideration never flagged. His thoughtfulness seemed instinctive. All his time; indeed, he stood ready to give to her.
It was a vivid period to her—that first month or so of her new life. For one thing it made her realize clearly what the power, the persuasion of wealth like the Beestons' meant. Fifth Avenue, the Fifth Avenue that would have turned up its nose at Bab the boarding-house waif, now turned itself inside out for Barbara, old Peter Beeston's grandchild. Modistes, milliners, bootmakers, all that horde of outfitters that batten on the rich, swarmed at the Beeston door. Clothes, hats, gloves, laces, what not were showered upon Bab. She had music lessons, she had dancing lessons; lessons in French, and in Italian, too, she took daily. Miss Elvira saw to all this. Bab, indeed, might have a manner; she might, indeed, be born to it; but even so, Miss Elvira was still determined there should be no mistake about it. Bab at times felt as if her head were whirling.
"It's ridiculous!" she protested. "I'm just living my life in hatshops! What do I need with so many things?" Indeed, as she pointed out, already she had enough for a dozen débutantes. "You try on that hat!" Miss Elvira directed grimly, adding that by the time she'd finished with Bab, Bab would look like someone.
Bab thought so too—either that, or Miss Elvira would destroy them both. However, all that her aunt did could not compare with the aid David lent. What he did was invaluable. It was he who first helped Bab make friends in that big world about them—girls whom he himself knew, men who were his own friends. Miss Elvira had wished to achieve this by a single, magnificent coup.
"Why not give a dance?" she suggested; but David put his foot down firmly. Bab happened to overhear him.
"Don't be an old silly!" he laughed, at the same time playfully pinching Miss Elvira's cheek. "A dance when she doesn't know a soul? Why, she'd feel as if she were alone in New York!"
"Well!" retorted his aunt. "What do you expect when you keep her always to yourself?"
The remark seemed provocative. At any rate after this on every pretense David went out of his way to have her meet his friends. To them, it appeared, Bab was for many reasons an object of more than passing interest. Good taste usually restrained them from probing too intimately into her past, but when curiosity got the better of them Bab laughingly revealed what they longed to hear.