"It 's too bad! Just as he was growing kind to me, and I was going to have a good time, it 's all spoilt by Fan's nonsense. Mrs. Shaw don't like it, nor grandma either, I dare say. There 'll be a fuss if I go, and Fan will plague me; so I 'll give it up, and let Tom think I 'm afraid. Oh, dear! I never did see such ridiculous people."Polly shut her door hard, and felt ready to cry with vexation, that her pleasure should be spoilt by such a silly idea; for, of all the silly freaks of this fast age, that of little people playing at love is about the silliest. Polly had been taught that it was a very serious and sacred thing; and, according to her notions, it was far more improper to flirt with one boy than to coast with a dozen. She had been much amazed, only the day before, to hear Maud say to her mother, "Mamma, must I have a beau?
The girls all do, and say I ought to have Fweddy Lovell; but I don't like him as well as Hawry Fiske.""Oh, yes; I 'd have a little sweetheart, dear, it 's so cunning," answered Mrs. Shaw. And Maud announced soon after that she was engaged to "Fweddy, 'cause Hawry slapped her" when she proposed the match.
Polly laughed with the rest at the time; but when she thought of it afterward, and wondered what her own mother would have said, if little Kitty had put such a question, she did n't find it cunning or funny, but ridiculous and unnatural. She felt so now about herself; and when her first petulance was over, resolved to give up coasting and everything else, rather than have any nonsense with Tom, who, thanks to his neglected education, was as ignorant as herself of the charms of this new amusement for school-children.
So Polly tried to console herself by jumping rope in the back-yard, and playing tag with Maud in the drying-room, where she likewise gave lessons in "nas-gim-nics," as Maud called it, which did that little person good.
Fanny came up sometimes to teach them a new dancing step, and more than once was betrayed into a game of romps, for which she was none the worse.
1
Another thing that troubled Polly was her clothes, for, though no one said anything, she knew they were very plain; and now and then she wished that her blue and mouse colored merinos were rather more trimmed, her sashes had bigger bows, and her little ruffles more lace on them. She sighed for a locket, and, for the first time in her life, thought seriously of turning up her pretty curls and putting on a "wad." She kept these discontents to herself, however, after she had written to ask her mother if she might have her best dress altered like Fanny's, and received this reply:
