PAGE 3
Her Prayer
by
“Mrs. King, I have some paint on my face, too, but I put it on because I was coming out with you. I thought you would like to have me look my very best.”
“Indeed I do, girlie,” said Mrs. King, putting her hand on the hand of the girl opposite her. “Indeed I do want you to look your best. I have liked you ever since I came to Hillcrest to live and it has hurt me to see you trying to do as all the other girls did. I have wished so often that you would be a leader in doing the finer things and help others to see what real beauty is and how to get it. Real beauty is not put on from the outside; it grows from within.”
Julia looked at Mrs. King’s sweet, loving face very hard for a minute and then said,
“I have liked you, too, and I have watched you go back and forth, wishing I could be like you. Will you show me how? Mother has tried but I thought she did not know. No one else has ever tried to tell me about your kind of beauty.”
So they made the compact. Then they sat and watched for well-dressed women; for women in whose faces there was strength of character and purpose; for girls whose very manner showed they were ladies; for men who honored the girls in whose company they were. Such fun as it was! Julia never knew the time to go so fast. It was so plain now that clothes did not necessarily make the lady. She was almost sorry when it came time to go home.
In the house, a great fire was burning and it looked so cozy.
“I have looked into your windows many times as I have passed and wished I could sit before the fire and dream and dream,” said the girl. “May I sit down here for a while?”
“We will both sit here,” said Mrs. King, “then I will tell you about my little girl who used to sit here with me.”
How Julia’s heart ached for her friend as she told her of her love for her own dear girl, of the plans they had made, of the sudden sickness and death, and of the loneliness of the big house since she had gone! She had thought Mrs. King had everything to make her happy, yet the thing she wanted most she could not have.
“Her hair was much like yours and sometimes, as you have passed, I have wished I could comb yours as I did hers. Would you mind if I did?” said the mother.
“I should love to have you,” said Julia.
“Well, then, when the fire has died out, we will go up to her room. In the drawer there I have a little white dress that perhaps you would like. I will comb your hair just as I did hers and see if the dress will fit you,” said Mrs. King. “If you look sweet and girlish in it, I will give it to you.”
While Mrs. King slipped away to get the things needed for the hairdressing, Julia went to the great white bathroom, and when she came out her face was sweet and clean and every trace of the paint and powder was gone. Her pretty brown hair was down her back in ringlets and her face wore a look which the girls at the office had never seen there.
Then Mrs. King brushed, and brushed, and brushed till the hair was soft and shiny. Low in her neck she coiled it, making it look girlish and neat, fastening it with a tiny velvet circlet. Then Julia held her breath as Mrs. King took from a drawer a little white dress. It was a simple silk mull but it was prettily made. Below it was a dainty petticoat and at the bottom of the drawer were white oxfords and fine, lisle stockings.