The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1893-01-14
conviction that Miss Polly Prout was

conviction that Miss Polly Prout was
right.
II can put on my green gown and a
tinfoil covered helmet, and go as Mi
nerva," said Miss Polly Prout; .'and
then can keep my eyes on the young
ladies the whole time"
"What have we done that spy
should be set upon our actions?" said
Ida Cotton, Indignantly, when they
were by themselves.
Minerva, indeedr' cried Marian
Hampshire, with protrusion of her
plump chin and screwing of her cherry
mouth SO exactly in imitation of Miss
Polly Prout that all the girls burst at
once into spasmodic giggle.
Hateful, forward thing!" sputtered
Louise Hayward. 'Why, she'll spoil
every bit of our funr'
e'11ow dare she obtrude herself, unin-
vited, upon poor Nell Evans?" said
Miriam Holley
''She shan't ome," said laughing
Kate Kesley. She shall never cross
Nell's thresholdn'
'But how will you help it?" said
Alice Appleton.
"We'll see!" was Kate's enigmatic
answer.
The next week was week of glad
preparation for the Forthcoming event,
and no one was more difficult to please,
or more exacting in her selection of
materials, and her ceaseless calls upon
the aid OF the young ladies, than Miss
Polly Prout, who ordered new 'sbang"
Of glossy chestnut hair for the occa-
sion, which would have been quite per-
feet if it had matched her back braids
little more exactly, and had pair of
green satin sandals made by the village
shoemaker, and mosquito pole gilded
to represent a spear by the picture
frame dealer.
ties" said Miss Polly, while in her mid
Gle-aged mind rose up the delusive idea
that perhaps some mature masquerader
OF the opposite sex might perceive in
her some greater attraction than the
youthful roses and girlish graces of the
eight graduating girls.
stranger things have happened" :"
complacently thought Miss Polly, as
she stitched away at the satin rosettes
which were to modernize her green
gown!
Z. But in spite of all her precautions,
the first sleigh-load of laughing girls
started without her, while she was
tying her fur hood over the tinfoil
he.met.
nWhat! gone already?" said Miss
Prout, angrily "Why didn't they waltz
What right had they to 60 off without
notifying me?"
Don't mind, Polly" said Nine. Mo-
rini, soothingly. Eight was all the
sleigh could carry besides the driver.
Michael says his orders were to bring
the cutter for you"
''Ordersr' shrilly repeated Miss Polly.
"But whose orders? Does Kate Kelsey
manage this institution, or do land
you? Ne crowd into cutter, indeed
with staring Irish lad like Michael to
drive? A pretty arrangement"
But, in spite of her Indignation. Miss
Polly Prout was compelled finally to
accede to the obnoxious plan.
'Drive quickly, Michael" she said to
her young Jehu, ''for it's getting dark
already, and don't like the woods that
we have to go through. Why on earth
those girls couldn't have waited-''
But the jingle of the sleigh-bells and
the sudden start of the horse brought
Miss Prout's sentence to an untimely
termination, and away they went over
the frozen road
however. Just within the
darksome limits of the cedar woods,
where the purple dusk that still
fingered in the open fields seemed
turned to the gloom of absolute night,
o tall, white agare, with black mask