Chapter 7

Some two months later than the date of young Marvell's midnight vigil,
Mrs. Heeny, seated on a low chair at Undine's knee, gave the girl's left
hand an approving pat as she laid aside her lapful of polishers.

"There! I guess you can put your ring on again," she said with a laugh
of jovial significance; and Undine, echoing the laugh in a murmur of
complacency, slipped on the fourth finger of her recovered hand a band
of sapphires in an intricate setting.

Mrs. Heeny took up the hand again. "Them's old stones, Undine--they've
got a different look," she said, examining the ring while she rubbed her
cushioned palm over the girl's brilliant finger-tips. "And the setting's
quaint--I wouldn't wonder but what it was one of old Gran'ma Dagonet's."

Mrs. Spragg, hovering near in fond beatitude, looked up quickly.

"Why, don't you s'pose he BOUGHT it for her, Mrs. Heeny? It came in a
Tiff'ny box."

The manicure laughed again. "Of course he's had Tiff'ny rub it up.
Ain't you ever heard of ancestral jewels, Mrs. Spragg? In the Eu-ropean
aristocracy they never go out and BUY engagement-rings; and Undine's
marrying into our aristocracy."

Mrs. Spragg looked relieved. "Oh, I thought maybe they were trying to
scrimp on the ring--"

Mrs. Heeny, shrugging away this explanation, rose from her seat and
rolled back her shiny black sleeves.

"Look at here, Undine, if you really want me to do your hair it's time
we got to work."

The girl swung about in her seat so that she faced the mirror on the
dressing-table. Her shoulders shone through transparencies of lace
and muslin which slipped back as she lifted her arms to draw the
tortoise-shell pins from her hair.

"Of course you've got to do it--I want to look perfectly lovely!"

"Well--I dunno's my hand's in nowadays," said Mrs. Heeny in a tone that
belied the doubt she cast on her own ability.

"Oh, you're an ARTIST, Mrs. Heeny--and I just couldn't have had that
French maid 'round to-night," sighed Mrs. Spragg, sinking into a chair
near the dressing-table.

Undine, with a backward toss of her head, scattered her loose locks
about her. As they spread and sparkled under Mrs. Heeny's touch, Mrs.
Spragg leaned back, drinking in through half-closed lids her daughter's
loveliness. Some new quality seemed added to Undine's beauty: it had a
milder bloom, a kind of melting grace, which might have been lent to it
by the moisture in her mother's eyes.

"So you're to see the old gentleman for the first time at this dinner?"
Mrs. Heeny pursued, sweeping the live strands up into a loosely woven
crown.