For two days she "fixed up" her distracting hair
at him so that its silken floss encircled her head like a nimbus; she
tucked her oval chin into a white fichu instead of a buttonless collar;
she appeared at dinner in a newly starched yellow frock! She talked
to him with "company manners;" said she would "admire to go to San
Francisco," and asked if he knew her old friends the Fauquier girls
from "Faginia." The colonel was somewhat disturbed; he was glad that his
daughter had become less negligent of her personal appearance; he could
not but see, with the others, how it enhanced her graces; but he was,
with the others, not entirely satisfied with her reasons. And he could
not help observing--what was more or less patent to ALL--that Starbuck
was far from being equally responsive to her attentions, and at times
was indifferent and almost uncivil. Nobody seemed to be satisfied with
Polly's transformation but herself.
But eventually she was obliged to assert herself. The third evening
after Starbuck's arrival she was going over to the cabin of Aunt Chloe,
who not only did the washing for Buena Vista, but assisted Polly in
dressmaking.
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