"Will you, Betty--will you? And will you be awful quick about it."
"I should like to have them," said Betty. "There's a friend of mine going to commit marriage, and that tidy would suit her down to the ground. She'd like it beyond anything. But, all the same, I don't hold with young ladies forcing their way into my kitchen; it's not haristocratic."
"Never mind that ugly word. Will you do what I want?"
"Palefy me. Make me sort of refined. Take the color out of me. Bleach me--that's it. I want to go to the seaside. Pale people go; rosy people don't. I want to be awful pale by to-night. How can it be done? It's more genteel to be pale."
"It is that," said Betty, looking at the rosy Penelope with critical eyes. "I have often fretted over my own color; it's mostly fixed in the nose, too. But I don't know any way to get rid of it."
Quick as thought she snatched up the pin-cushion and tidy.
"You don't have these," she said. "Your friend what's going to be married won't have this tidy. If you can't take fixed colors out of me, you don't have fixed colors for your bedroom, so there!"
"You are awful quick and smart, miss, and I have heard tell that vinegar does it."
"I have heard tell, but I have never tried it. You drink it three times a day, a wine-glass at a time. It's horrid nasty stuff, but if you want to change your complexion you must put up with some sort of inconvenience."
"Suppose, Betty, you and me both drink it. Your nose might get white, and I might go to the seaside."
"No, miss, I'm not tempted to interfere with nature. I've got good 'ealth, and I'll keep it without no vinegar."
"But will you give me some? You shall have the pin-cushion and the tidy if you do."
"'Arriet would like that tidy," contemplated Betty, looking with round eyes at the hideous ornament.
"You sneak round to the boot-house, and I'll have it ready for you," she said. "Come at eleven, come again at half-past three, and come at seven in the evening."
This was arranged, and Pen, faithfully to the minute, did make her appearance in the boot-house. She drank off her first glass of vinegar with a wry face; but after it was swallowed she began to feel intensely good and pleased with herself.
"Will it pale me in an hour?" was her thought.