“Oh, come,” she said reassuringly, “they are not so bad, Mellicent! With a little polish they would look quite presentable. I’ll tap at the door and ask Rosalind if she has some that she can lend us. She is sure to have it. There are about fifty thousand bottles on her table.”
Peggy crossed the room as she spoke, tapped on the panel and received an immediate answer in a high complacent treble.
“Coming! Coming! I’m weady.” Then the door flew open; a tiny pink silk shoe stepped daintily over the mat, and Rosalind stood before them in all the glory of a new Parisian dress. Three separate gasps of admiration greeted her appearance, and she stood smiling and dimpling while the girls took in the fascinating details—the satin frock of palest imaginable pink, the white chiffon over dress which fell from shoulder to hem in graceful freedom, sprinkled over with exquisite rose-leaves—it was all wonderful—fantastic—as far removed from Peggy’s muslin as from the homely crepon of the Vicar’s daughters.
“Rosalind! what a perfect angel you look!” gasped Mellicent, her own dilemma forgotten in her whole-hearted admiration, but the next moment memory came back and her expression changed to one of pitiful appeal. “But oh, have you got any boot polish? The most awful thing has happened. I’ve brought my old shoes by mistake! Look! I don’t know what on earth I shall do if you can’t give me something to black the toes.” She held out the shoes as she spoke, and Rosalind gave a shrill scream of laughter.
“Oh! oh! Those things! How fwightfully funny; what a fwightful joke! You will look like Cinderwella, when she wan away and the glass slippers changed back to her dweadful old clogs. It is too scweamingly funny, I do declare!”
“Oh, never mind what you declare! Can you lend us some boot polish, that’s the question!” cried Peggy sharply. She knew Mellicent’s horror of ridicule, and felt indignant with the girl who could stand by secure in her own beauty and elegance, and have no sympathy for the misfortune of a friend. “If you have a bottle of Peerless Gloss or any of those shiny things with a sponge fastened on the cork, I can make them look quite respectable, and no one will have any cause to laugh.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” trilled Rosalind once more, “Peggy is cwoss! I never knew such a girl for flying into tantwums at a moment’s notice! Yes, of course, I’ll lend you the polish. There is some in this little cupboard—there! I won’t touch it in case it soils my gloves. Shall I call Marie to put it on for you?”
“Thank you; there’s no need—I can do it! I would rather do it myself!”
“Oh—oh, isn’t she cwoss! You will bweak the cork if you scwew it about like that, and then you’ll never be able to get it out. Why don’t you pull it pwoperly?”
“I know how to pull out a cork, thank you; I’ve done it before!”