it must be a regular surprise, you know – we bring our own refreshments and everything,” laughed Kenneth.
“Oh, no! That is the least we can do in return for all you folks have done for us. We will furnish your refreshments!” declared Eleanor, positively.
“As long as you furnish plenty, all right. But remember, girls, that Ken and I still have our Rocky Mountain appetites!”
CHAPTER IV – BARGAINS, BARGAINS EVERYWHERE!
With the worry of house-hunting gone, the young friends felt at liberty to be deliberate while apportioning their time. Anne took Polly and Eleanor to the West End School, the morning following their meeting with Mr. Fabian, and introduced them to the proprietress as the two young ladies she had written about.
Polly thought the elegant mansion that looked more like a prince’s residence than a school, would keep her from concentrating upon her lessons. While Anne and the principal of the select school talked business, Polly glanced about the reception room.
The rugs were beautiful, most of them having the faded soft colors of the antique Persian and Turkish. But the furniture was too gorgeous in upholstering for the type of room. Then there were heavy boxed oil paintings in rich gilt frames, hanging on the walls; and teakwood pedestals holding statuettes and busts; and onyx stands with palms. The mantel was loaded with bric-a-brac of all sorts. Many other minor items showed bad taste in whoever furnished the room.
Polly felt all this, but could not explain just why she resented such a conglomeration of color and furnishings. But Eleanor, having had the results of a decorator’s judgment displayed in her home, in Chicago, felt inclined to smile at what she saw about her. It was sure evidence of Polly’s improvement in artistic interiors since the day she thought the green window-shades quite the thing, to this time when the indiscriminate mixing of colors offended her eyes.
“I really am relieved to hear that you will not be resident here, Miss Stewart, as I need your room for two boarders. I had planned to enlarge the dormitory this year, but everything costs so much that I postponed it. Now this extra room will come in very nicely for me,” Mrs. Wellington was saying when Polly and Eleanor had finished a survey of the room, and rejoined Anne.
“Girls, Mrs. Wellington says we may have a look at the class-rooms. Would you like to go with me?” said Anne.
Without demur they followed the lady of the house. They passed through the formal parlor where guests of distinction were entertained. Here the two girls also saw the lack of taste in furnishing. Gilded furniture with delicate satin upholstery, fought with wallpaper of heavy Spanish-leather design. Curtains and portières were of velour, heavily edged with fringe. Valances of velour were over the windows, and on the mantel. Instead of having a delicate French carpet on the floor, there were thick napped dark-toned Beloochistan rugs.
The long library opened out from the parlor, and here there was an atmosphere of rest, because the entire wall spaces were lined with dark cabinets whose shelves were well filled with volumes in bindings made to harmonize with the rich paper that showed above the book-cases. The window-seats were built in and upholstered in tapestry to match the paper. The tables and leather armchairs were not so glaringly out of keeping with the room as the furniture in the first two rooms had been.
Mrs. Wellington waved her hand carelessly at this room: “When I bought this house, all the books went with it, just as you see them now. The window-seats are still covered as they were, but I hope soon to spend some money in making this library more cheerful for the girls. I like bright colors, but that dun wall paper and that dull tapestry on the window cushions gives me the blues. If the books had not been such a bargain – the executor of the estate was most anxious to dispose of them – I never would have taken them. Their dull green morocco bindings make the room seem heavy, don’t you think?”
“Oh, no! I was just thinking how lovely the glint of the gold lettering on each dark book makes the room seem. If only there was a dark polished floor to reflect the chair and table legs, the room would be wonderful! But this large carpet spoils that effect!” Nolla exclaimed impetuously.
Mrs. Wellington straightened her spine and looked in hurt amazement at this inexperienced miss who babbled like an expert decorator. No one had ever criticised that carpet rug before!
Anne saw the look and comprehended at once, so she dropped oil on the troubled waters. “Oh, Nolla! you are so carried away with your hobby of studying decorating that you needs must practise it and criticise everywhere. Now, I’m sure, Mrs. Wellington never would have dreamed of your ambition had you not showed it so plainly in your words just now.”
Eleanor understood Anne’s motive in speaking thus, and smiled benignly. Polly was still trying to grasp the handle to Anne’s remark when the lady of the house led them forth again.
“Here are a number of smaller rooms where girls may sit and read or study in the evening. And now we will go up to the class rooms.”
If Eleanor and Polly had been able to find flaws with the lack of taste shown in the furnishings of the first-floor, they could not detect the slightest item missing in the equipment and furnishing of the different school rooms. Every known modern device and object for the comfort, health and help of scholars, were in evidence. Anne smiled with pleasure as she looked around.
“It will be a delight to teach in such a room as this, Mrs. Wellington; and I’m sure the scholars appreciate all you do for them.”
“No, that is the strange part of it, Miss Stewart. The girls who come here seldom think of all I do for them in providing these rooms. They take it as a matter of course that I should spend so much money in keeping everything as I do, while my competitors ask higher rates and spend less;” the lady looked troubled over it.
“Now I have a friend down on Seventy-second street, who has conducted a most exclusive school for years; but she will not spend a cent in these ideal accommodations yet she gets higher prices than I do. And her waiting list of well-known names is endless. I only have a list of about a dozen applicants and they are not daughters of millionaires, either.”
“Perhaps,” Anne remarked kindly, “the girls you graduate make something of themselves in life, whereas those other society girls merely skim over lessons and never know how to spell their own names.”
“Yes, that is true; I secure the very best teachers and try to instill knowledge wisely. And I am sure, my girls, upon leaving here, can compete with anyone.”
“I should say that was a great comfort. To look back some day and be able to say: ‘I taught that girl how to combat ignorance.’ And the girls who sincerely admit what you have done, will rise up and call you blessed – for giving them these expensive modern helps to acquire wisdom.”
Madam seemed pleased with this point of view, and said: “You will stop and have luncheon with me, won’t you, dears?”
“We really cannot, Mrs. Wellington. You see we have to furnish the home that we just leased, yesterday. We are most anxious to have everything in order before starting with our school work on the first,” Anne explained, politely.
“Oh, of course, that is wise. Then I will look for you Monday morning – the first of October. If there is anything you wish to know, you can call me up any time during the mornings. And if you are in this neighborhood before the first, do come in and have tea.”
After the girls had gone, Madam smiled and thought to herself: “I certainly made no mistake in engaging that young teacher. She seems to be the best one I have ever interviewed. And the girls will take to her, I’m
