it gave the beholder a certain sense of being in a district
heaven. She was poor in arithmetic and weak in geometry, but if
you gave her a rose, a bit of ribbon, and a seven-by-nine
looking-glass she could make herself as pretty as a pink in two
minutes.
Safely sheltered behind the pines, Miss Dearborn began to
practice mysterious feminine arts. She flew at Rebecca's tight
braids, opened the strands and rebraided them loosely; bit and
tore the red, white, and blue ribbon in two and tied the braids
separately. Then with nimble fingers she pulled out little
tendrils of hair behind the ears and around the nape of the neck.
After a glance of acute disapproval directed at the stiff balloon
skirt she knelt on the ground and gave a strenuous embrace to
Rebecca's knees, murmuring, between her hugs, "Starch must be
cheap at the brick house!"
This particular line of beauty attained, there ensued great
pinchings of ruffles; the fingers that could never hold a ferule
nor snap children's ears being incomparable fluting-irons.
Next the sash was scornfully untied, and tightened to suggest
something resembling a waist. The chastened bows that had been
squat, dowdy, spiritless, were given tweaks, flirts, bracing
little pokes and dabs, till, acknowledging a master hand, they
stood up, piquant, pert, smart, alert!
Pride of bearing was now infused into the flattened lace at the
neck, and a pin (removed at some sacrifice from her own toilette)
was darned in at the back to prevent any cowardly lapsing. The
short white cotton gloves that called attention to the tanned
wrists and arms were stripped off and put in her own pocket.
Then the wreath of pine-cones was adjusted at a heretofore
unimagined angle, the hair was pulled softly into a fluffy frame,