Ah, Prudy, your little sister, though more brilliant than you are, has not your exquisite tact.
Mrs. Pragoff tried to laugh off this awkward blunder, but did not succeed. The moment Dotty could catch her ear, she said, in a low tone,--
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Pragoff-yetski. Will it do any good to go and tell her she made me think of a Shetland pony?"
Mrs. Pragoff laughed, and thought not. But afterwards she took Mallie into a corner to show her some "seven-years" African flowers, and said,--
"Mallie, dear, I wish you wouldn't veil those bright eyes under such fuzzy little curls. That was why you got the key. Dotty Dimple isn't used to seeing young ladies look like Shetland ponies."
Mallie's face brightened, or that part of it which was in sight. O, it was only her hair the country child called horrid! After this she actually allowed Dotty to sit beside her on the sofa, and look at the fan which Mrs. Pragoff said Marie Antoinette had once owned. Miss Dimple was remarkably polite and reserved.
"Safe as long as she stays in a corner," thought Horace; and he took care to keep her supplied with books and pictures.
He enjoyed the party, not being overawed, as poor Prudy was. Wasn't he as good as any of them? Better than most, for he didn't have to use an eye-glass. "These fellows are got up cheap. What do hair-oil and perfumery amount to?"
The boys, in their turn, looked at Horace, and decided he was "backwoodsy." Nobody who sported a silver watch could belong to the "first circles." However, when he allowed himself to be "Knight of the Whistle," and hunted for the enchanted thing which everybody was blowing, and found at last it was dangling down his own back from a string, and they were all laughing at him, he was manly enough not to get vexed. That carried him up several degrees in every one's esteem. In his own, too, I confess.
As for Prudy, the girls could not help seeing she had no style; but the boys liked her, for all that. If they had only known what their hostess thought, there would have been some surprise.
"These little misses look to me like bonnet flowers made out of book-muslin. Prudy, now, is a genuine, fresh moss rose bud. There is no comparison, you dear little Prudy, between artificial and natural flowers!"