"I mean for me--of course, I have talked this matter over with Colonel Tennytown--in fact, we have had it in mind a long time. As you already know, I have private means and an income that acc.u.mulates until I hardly know at times where to place it."

Miss Worth toyed with the ringlets of silky jet that crossed the girl's low brow.

"I love all my pupils," she went on, "but your little self has taken a hold upon my affections in a way that no other pupil has ever done--and we feel--I feel that you have gifts and natural apt.i.tudes that should not be neglected--and cultivation costs money, Belle-Ann, and I want you to borrow some money from me."

Belle-Ann's round violet eyes had grown wider with wonder, as she studied the youthful countenance of the woman with the white hair.

"But am I not at school heah?" she observed. "Besides, I don't need money--deah daddy sent me fifty dollars last month and I have lots of that left, and heah it is near the end of the month and he will send more, too. I thank you-all so much, Miss Virginia--but----"

The teacher placed her hand over the ravishing mouth and left only the eloquent eyes protesting.

"You don't seem to catch the import of my suggestion clearly, Belle-Ann," admonished Miss Worth. "Your kind father is not in a position to afford you the kind of training and education that your energy and latent talents warrant. At the rate of your present progress, you will soon outstrip the advantages which a school like this can offer you. In less than another year, you will know all that we have here. I well know that you are not the girl to grow vain--but your voice has always stirred me like a miracle. I should accuse my own conscience if your voice went amiss for want of culture. You plainly possess musical instincts that are suffering now. We think that you should go, very shortly now, down to Lexington to the Seminary, where the facilities for your musical training are sufficiently good for the beginning--and eventually you can go abroad--to Germany--and the means will be forthcoming!"

"You mean--mean across the ocean?" cried Belle-Ann in amazement.

"Yes."

"Alone--by myself?" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Well, we can't tell--I may go with you," predicted Miss Worth with an amused smile.

As the import of Miss Worth's proposition filtered into her comprehension, an efflux of joy and grat.i.tude bubbled up from the girl's heart and tinged her dimples with carmine and overspread her cheeks. She sat for a minute beyond words. Her eyes strayed to the open window, and her gaze continued on over the pine tops, as though fixed intently upon a tiny mote that had bobbed about and gesticulated on the horizon of her child-dreams, but which was now resolved out of mythical vagueness into a poignant reality that was growing and speeding toward her with her own humble life for a goal, and with a pageantry of opportunity that dazzled and overwhelmed her senses.

Slowly, very slowly, she turned her flushed face and fixed her eyes, now moist and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with love, grat.i.tude and homage upon Miss Worth. Her bosom lifted as she looked mutely into the face that smiled down upon her. Then Belle-Ann's round chin lowered and her curls were on the woman's breast and her arms crept up and around and locked about the neck of her benefactress. Miss Worth patted her shoulder, and whispered words through her curls, and presently Belle-Ann whispered back to her.

"But can I be worth it--could I ever--ever--be worth it? Besides, I could never, never, pay you-all back," she deplored tremulously.

"Surely you can, sometime--you will have money of your own--that is, you may become a great prima-donna," she ended optimistically. Belle-Ann sat up straight.

"Prima-donna," she repeated uncertainly.

"Yes--you know, Belle-Ann, even in your simple old-timey song, 'Kitty Wells,' I have wondered at the volume and peculiar quality of your voice, and have compared the strength of that peculiar cadence to that of great singers I have heard. I believe that your voice holds all the fundamental requisites of an operatic singer. Anyhow, we are going to have your voice cultivated to its highest perfection--and who can tell--you may in time become a prima-donna."

Belle-Ann hung upon Miss Worth's utterances with an intentness that lent to her an att.i.tude of listening to some seductive melody coming from afar.

"Prima-donna--prima-donna," she murmured softly and wonderingly.

"Prima-donna--but don't tell me--let me find it, Miss Worth--I am not sure of its meaning." Whereupon, she skipped across the room and returning with her dictionary, flurried over its pages eagerly and swiftly.

"P-r--p-r-i--prima--prima-donna--heah, I have it," she said.

"'Prima-donna--the princ.i.p.al female singer in an opera;'--and do they make lots of money?" she inquired quickly.

"They surely do," responded Miss Worth with growing amus.e.m.e.nt. Belle-Ann reflected for a moment.

"Maybe--fifty dollars a month?" she ventured timidly.

"That sum wouldn't interest a prima-donna, Belle-Ann. It is said that some of them enjoy salaries of one thousand dollars per week and more."

"One thousand dollars!" she cried, aghast.

"Yes."

Belle-Ann slowly closed her dictionary and a look of deep disappointment touched her pretty oval features.

"Oh, no, Miss Virginia," she sighed, clasping her little hands hopelessly. "I could never make one thousand dollars in one week--I just know I couldn't."

Miss Worth laughed outright--then kissed her twice.

"Let's talk about what we are to do to-morrow," suggested Miss Worth cheerily. "I have another pleasant surprise for you, dearest." Belle-Ann showed her winsome dimples and waited expectantly.

"It is very necessary that you have some nice clothes and have them immediately. I mean some stylish apparel suitable to appear in city society, because you have some friends in Lexington who are anxious to have us visit them shortly, so to-morrow morning you and I are going to the city and I will take you to a modiste and have some pretty gowns made up for you. Here is the money." At this juncture, Miss Worth dropped five one hundred dollar bills into Belle-Ann's lap. The girl was utterly stupefied with a surging joy, and her exclamations of delight were varied and many as she tossed her curls in sheer exultation and rapture.

The mere antic.i.p.ation and the purpose of this intended sojourn filled Belle-Ann's untutored, pleasure-starved heart with ecstasy.

She talked volubly along, her cheeks aflush, in a transport at the prospect of possessing herself of an a.s.sortment of pretty modern dresses for which her girl-heart now yearned,--particularly since she came to the school and observed the dainty, modish clothes of some of the girls who came over from Beattyville on Sunday to visit Miss Worth and Miss Ackerman.

And thus it was that a new and alluring vista of probabilities opened up before her imagination that set her blood a-tingle and made her eyes sparkle with antic.i.p.ation. The elusive dimples came and went, and she was very beautiful in this sudden, new happiness. Belle-Ann never forgot the joys of that shopping sojourn to Lexington.

That night her mind teemed with processions of fantastic imaginings that, strive as she would, she could not dispel. Notwithstanding that her slumber had been scant, she arose earlier than usual fresh and bright and charged with an enthusiasm profuse and spontaneous. At eight-thirty the following morning, Belle-Ann and Miss Worth crossed the ferry to Beattyville. Here they took the train for Lexington and Belle-Ann had her first ride in a Pullman car.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE GUEST OF A GRANDEE

Arriving at Lexington, the girl was confronted with her first sight of a city. Belle-Ann was agreeably surprised to meet Colonel Tennytown, who had been awaiting their arrival at the station. The Colonel was plainly as pleased as was Belle-Ann, and helped the two into his big limousine with many courtesies and a radiant countenance. And here the girl whose head was a-whirl with child-like rapture, was treated to her first automobile ride.

The Colonel's first thoughtful act was to present Miss Worth and Belle-Ann with a great cl.u.s.ter of roses he had in the car for them. He then directed the liveried chauffeur to drive out to his homestead, but in this he was artfully thwarted by Miss Worth, who hastily and firmly protested with a meaning look, declaring that their time was limited and that by complying with his kind invitation, the shopping would suffer.

In lieu of that pleasure, the persistent Colonel, not to be denied, took the ladies to a big hotel where they had luncheon and spent an enlivened hour in his company, after which, Colonel Tennytown went his way, sending the ladies onward in his car to do their shopping.

The wonder and mysteries of the big shops inspired Belle-Ann with amazement and delight unbounded, and her spontaneous and original comments and profuse inquiries concerning these sights kept her companion's face in one perpetual wreath of amused and happy smiles.

After purchasing a number of suitable fabrics, Miss Worth took Belle-Ann to a modiste where they were detained for more than two hours. By the time they had completed their shopping, it was dusk and their automobile dashed up to the station barely in time to make the train. Colonel Tennytown was there to see them off, and had only time to bid them a hurried good-by.

Miss Worth had arranged for all her minor purchases to be delivered to the school the same day that the gowns were sent. In the meantime, Belle-Ann had made three hurried trips with Miss Worth to the modiste in Lexington for fittings. Then, one memorable day, a horde of boxes arrived at the school for Belle-Ann. There were four exquisite dresses cut in the latest fashion. There were three beautiful imported hats.

There were delicate veils and gloves and shoes and three dainty pairs of pumps embellished with oddly carved silver buckles. There were lingerie of the finest texture and stockings of many hues, so soft and fine that Belle-Ann marvelled at their resiliency. Also, there was a great bra.s.s-bound trunk, with compartments, with Belle-Ann's name stamped thereon, and a smart buff-leather traveling bag.

There was everything calculated to inspire a girl-heart to the heights of inexpressible happiness,--particularly a girl who had never before known a luxurious life. Miss Worth and Belle-Ann spent half the night in the girl's room amid a deluge of tissue paper and boxes.

The following Tuesday Miss Worth and Belle-Ann went to Lexington to visit Colonel Tennytown and his sister. The girl's figure had rounded and she had grown a head taller during the past winter. Her appearance in a city in her simple mountain garb would have challenged attention,--not because of the quaintness of the garb, but by merit of her natural grace and fresh, startling beauty. But to-day this wealth of beauty was enhanced a hundred fold. When she alighted at the station in Lexington, she presented a vision of loveliness that arrested the admiring eyes of people who had become inured to the sight of pretty girls, from the nearby newsboys, up to a group of loquacious old ladies who wore suffragist badges.

Belle-Ann wore a dark blue creation that fell in clinging, Parisian grace about her supple form. The yoke and sleeves were trimmed with pleated lace of exquisite richness, and a jabot of lace fell down the front from the yoke midway to the waistline. On her feet were dark blue pumps with silver buckles and hose to match. She wore a large Panama hat caught up at one side, drooping at the other side and back and girded with a wide Persian ribbon knotted at the back and ending in a silk fringe that trailed toward the hair. Her ma.s.s of black, l.u.s.trous curls were caught up in the back in the embrace of a large Oriental clasp of unique design.

In one hand she carried a beautiful Oriental purse suspended by a dragon-skin thong, which was hemmed with a camel's-hair braid. In the other hand, she balanced a long-stemmed white silk parasol. The apparel might have been duplicated; but the oval face under the Panama hat had no replica. There was no vestige of powder or cosmetics on the girl's complexion, which was left in all the rich purity that nature decreed to her.

The chin was indescribably fascinating. A little mouth with curved carmine lips that turned upward at the corners flanked by dimples. A short, thin little nose, white like the soft white of a rose petal.