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Arctura looked as pretty a little waiting-damsel as might be seen, in her brown, two-skirted, best delaine dress, and her white, ruffled, muslin bib-apron, her nicely arranged hair, braided up high around her head and frizzed a little, gently, at the front, since why shouldn't she, too, have a bit of the fashion? and tied round with a soft, simple white ribbon.
"Well, I suppose Arctura Fish might 'like it' too," responded Rose, in a deadly quiet way now, that was the extreme of sarcasm. Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamond suggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing how to dispose of the thought since she had got it. Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs.
The doctor says his father can't stay here." "Arctura Fish won't go," said Rosamond, instantly. "Arctura Fish is as neat as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap," said Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and since nobody else will ever dare to give in I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now, for us!" "It isn't giving in; it is going on," said Mrs. Holabird.
If you once get a new dress, or a new dictionary, or a new convenience of any kind, did you never notice that you immediately have occasions which prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? We could not have spared Arctura a single day, after that, all winter. Mother gave up, and was ill for a fortnight. Stephen twisted his foot skating, and was laid up with a sprained ankle.
Ingleside's Bible-class; that is how Ruth, and then the rest of us, came to know her. Arctura Fish is another of Mrs. Ingleside's scholars. She is a poor girl, living at service, or, rather, working in a family for board, clothing, and a little "schooling," the best of which last she gets on Sundays of Mrs. Ingleside, until she shall have "learned how," and be "worth wages."
So it is not a hopeless puzzle and an impracticable achievement to little Arctura Fish. It is wonderful how nice she has made herself look lately, and how many little ways she puts on, just like Lucilla's. She hasn't got beyond mere mechanical copying, yet; when she reaches to where Lucilla really is, she will take in differently.
Arctura Fish is making herself up, slowly, after the pattern of Lucilla Waters. She would not undertake Leslie Goldthwaite or Helen Josselyn, Mrs. Ingleside's younger sister, who stays with her so much, or even our quiet Ruth. But Lucilla Waters comes just next. She can just reach up to her.
With all our troubles, there was one pleasure in the house, Arctura. We had made an art-kitchen; now we were making a little poem of a serving-maiden. We did not turn things over to her, and so leave chaos to come again; we only let her help; we let her come in and learn with us the nice and pleasant ways that we had learned.
Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some pretty knitting, making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten him at the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intent thought. She made up her mind presently, partly at least, and spoke again. "I don't believe," she said, "that it would be the next thing for Arctura Fish."
Arctura learned little grammar lessons, and other such things, by the way. She was only "next" below us in our family life; there was no great gulf fixed. We felt that we had at least got hold of the right end of one thread in the social tangle. This, at any rate, had come out of our year at Westover. "Things seem so easy," the girl would say. "It is just like two times one."
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