Her brow cleared at this, and she laughed with satisfaction. When I
blurted out something about having once run off to a shop parlour, before
I came to Aunt, for a peep at a full-length glass, she laughed again at
the confession and called me "a buttercup, a perfect _Diane_."
At dinner we met Mr. Van Dam--a small man who doesn't talk much; and it
seemed so exciting to have wine at table, though of course I did not taste
it, or coffee.
And it was delightful to lean back in the carriage, as we drove to the
Opera House, and remember how Kitty and I used to pin up our skirts under
our ulsters and jog about in street cars. Mrs. Van Dam wore a wonderful
hooded cloak of lace and fur, and her gloves fastened all the way to her
elbows with silk loops that passed over silver balls.
I had been so impatient during dinner, because they didn't sit down until
eight o'clock, and then dawdled as if there were no Opera to follow; but I
needn't have worried, for although the performance had begun when we
arrived, there were still many vacant places in the great house. I drew
closer about my face the scarf that Ethel had lent me until we had passed
through the dazzling lobby, up the stairway and through the corridors, and
until the red curtains of the box had parted, and I had slipped into the
least conspicuous chair.
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