“They’re so darling and Valleyish,” she explained to Archibald, and he understood what she meant. Moreover, the piquant little face and the wild-rose hat rimed in a way to satisfy his artist soul and to strengthen his growing conviction that Pegeen was headed toward beauty and already well on the way. The parasol was easily chosen—a pink one to match the hat—but on the subject of frocks, there was serious debate. Archibald centered his affections upon a pink linen that Miss Carter considered impracticable from the point of view of laundering.
“Of course if she could afford to have a great many,” she began. The artist waved the laundry problem aside.
“We will take the pink one,” he announced firmly, and Pegeen heaved a sigh of satisfaction, though she had nobly sided with the advisory committee on the subject of laundering.
“And a couple of white things,” said Archibald,—“and then be as practical as you please, so long as practical doesn’t mean ugly.” There were ten frocks in the pile when they called a halt and Pegeen’s astonished eyes were so widely, darkly blue that they seemed to fill most of her face. “Now a coat and raincoat,” prompted the Fairy Godfather,—and when the coats were chosen, he felt in his pockets for his pipe.
“I’m through,” he said,—“you can run the rest of the show, on your own, Miss Carter. There’s the list, and you know what a girl her age ought to have. Get her shoes big enough and buy her everything she needs. Then I want you to take her somewhere and put her into the pink outfit—whole business; I’ll be out in front when you get through.”
An hour later, as he sat on a nail-keg in front of the hardware store next door, a vision appeared to him—a vision in pink—a vision of youth incarnate, all smiles and blushes, and tremulous hope, and heart-clutching fear.
Slowly, she turned round before him, once—twice. Then she stood still and looked at him anxiously from under the rose-wreathed new hat.
“Do you like me?” she asked, her voice high and wobbly from excitement.
“Ye gods!” he murmured feebly. “Is this the young person who is seeing to me?”
“Yes, sir,” she assured him hastily. “She’s got work clothes too, but she’s adventuring to-day.”
“My dear,” said Archibald, half seriously, “in a few years, it will be a very perilous adventure to look as pretty as all that.”