"She thinks she is," answered another speaker; "she believes she's at the tip-top of creation; but she never had such a pretty dress on as that in her days; and she knows it and she don't like it. It's real fun to see St. Clair beat; she thinks she is so much better than other girls, and she has such a way of twisting that upper lip of hers. Do you know how St. Clair twists her upper lip? Look!—she's doing it now."
"She's handsome though, ain't she?" said Miss Macy. "She'll be beautiful."
"No," said Mlle. Géneviève; "not that. Never that. She will be handsome; but beauty is a thing of the soul. She will not be beautiful. Daisy, are you going to work hard this year?"
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"I believe you," she said, taking my face between her two hands and kissing it.
"Whoever saw Mlle. Géneviève do that before!" said Miss Macy, as the other left us. "She is not apt to like the scholars."
I knew she had always liked me. But everybody had always liked me, I reflected; this time at school was the first of my knowing anything different. And in this there now came a change. Since my wearing and using the Paris things sent to me by my mother, which I dared not fail to use and wear, I noticed that my company was more sought in the school. Also my words were deferred to, in a way they had not been before. I found, and it was not an unpleasant thing, that I had grown to be a person of consequence. Even with the French and English teachers; I observed that they treated me with more consideration. And so I reflected within myself again over Dr. Sand
ford's observation, "L'habit, c'est l'homme." Of course it was a consideration given to my clothes, a consideration also to be given up if I did not wear such clothes. I saw all that. The world knew me, just for the moment.
Well, the smooth way was very pleasant. I had it with everybody for a time.