So Molly had the afternoon to herself and the heaven of dreaming her young soul yearned for. She was more than content with Lightning’s going. He was right enough in his estimate of her mood. There was nothing, and no one, must come between her and the wonderful thing that was hers.
From dinner to the time of Andy’s arrival with his team and spring wagon was none too long for all Molly had to do. It was perhaps the most beautiful three hours in her life. For all that had gone before when the man had taught her her first meaning of love, these hours in contemplation of herself, and the beautiful garments that had been showered upon her by the generous hand of Blanche, were perhaps her real awakening to the meaning of her womanhood. The whole thing was so deliciously expressive of her ardent youth.
In her precise little way she had promptly decided there should be no half measures. Nothing but completeness could satisfy her. So it came that a great boiler was set on the stove, and the iron bath, in which her weekly laundry was done, was made ready. Nothing would have induced her to defile the precious finery with a body that had not been specially prepared.
Her bath was an expression of wonderful restraint, but she went through with it with a resolve that was quite beautiful in its self-denial. The whole time of it was one of infinite anticipation and yearning for the array of beauty laid out awaiting her in her bedroom.
At last the great moment came, and the joy of it all was beyond words. She lingered in a state of ecstasy over each detail of her dressing. Some of it was easy, even to her untutored mind; some of it was fraught with such bewilderment that she came near enough to despair. Inside out, wrong way round, the girl found herself well-nigh frantic through her lack of knowledge. But patience served her truly in the end, and her little mirror reassured her.
The transformation was complete. No Cinderella was ever more richly endowed. She gazed for minutes that swept swiftly on at the wonder which Blanche’s wizardry had created. Her eyes shone with delight as they gazed at the beautiful picture they beheld looking back at her out of the old mirror. Blanche had judged rightly. Their figures were almost identical, so the delicate blue frock revealed itself in its most ravishing aspect.
Yes, the eyes gazing back at her were like twin stars in the velvet setting of a moonlit sky. Her carefully coiled hair, shining with satin-like sheen, was surmounted by paste brilliants which had been selected with such care and taste by the woman who had sent them. And the string of pearl beads about her soft, white throat were an adornment incapable of increasing its beauty. The straightness of the cut of the frock itself entirely disguised the soft contours of her youthful figure, and the arms, bare to the shoulder, were white, and soft, and round, with perfect formation of her trained muscles.
Then her feet, and the length of silk hose below the edge of the duly shortened skirt. The fascination of these things was something that left the girl almost bewildered at the change. The hose revealed the ivory tint of the flesh beneath and her diminutive feet, usually encased in heavy highlows, or gum boots or even buckskin moccasins that made them look broad and flat, seemed, in their beautifully shaped covering of silver tissue, utterly incapable of supporting the substantial burden for which they were designed.
The rattle of Andy’s spring wagon pulling up outside her door sent the warm blood rushing into Molly’s cheeks. Her moment had come, that moment for which for seven anxious days she had waited, and of which she had dreamed. Her inclination was to rush out and greet him, and so reveal to him the wonder of her physical transformation. But she denied the impulse.
Just for a moment a little smiling reflection looked back at her out of her mirror. Then she glanced round her bedroom. She left the fur wrap unheeded on the bed. No power on earth at that moment could have persuaded her to hide up her splendour beneath its folds. So she passed it by, and moved slowly and restrainedly out into the living-room, and, with all her woman’s delighted vanity, she waited.