Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/200

 One day she stood before her mirror, arrayed in a claret-colored cashmere, which was to be her "Sunday gown" in the coming winter. There was a trimming of velvet ribbon which was highly effective, and the broad tatting collar was very becoming to the round white throat within it. Mary studied the dress with some satisfaction, and then she inadvertently looked up at her reflected face. For the first time in her life she was struck with her own good looks, and her eyes danced with pleasure. Mrs. Beardsley would be more likely to approve her, the school-girls would perhaps like her, if she looked like that. She smiled at herself, and the pretty teeth thus revealed added greatly to the favorable impression.

"How absurd I am!" she said to herself, and she laughed aloud. She had never seen her laughing face before. It had been a prematurely serious countenance which she had associated with herself. "Oh, isn't it delicious to be alive?" she exclaimed, confidingly, to her own image.

If vanity is pleasure in one's own good points, Mary William was rapidly developing her share of it. But the beauty and originality of her vanity consisted in the turn it took. It looked only to pleasing a middle-aged woman and a school full of young girls, and, as such well-regulated vanity deserved, it was crowned with success.