Noxon's, in Newport."
Miss Silsby always used the first person singular, though she never
danced; and if she had, in the costume of her charges, the effect
would have been a fatal satire.
By now Kedzie was familiar enough with names of great places
to realize the accolade. To be recognized by the Noxons was to
be patented by royalty. And Newport was Mecca.
The pilgrimage thither was a voyage of discovery with all
an explorer's zest. Her first view of the city disappointed her,
but her education had progressed so far that she was able to call
the pleasant, crooked streets of the older towns "picturesque."
A person who is able to murmur "How picturesque!" has made progress
in snobbical education. Kedzie murmured, "How picturesque!" when
she saw the humbler portions of Newport.
But there was a poignant sincerity in her admiration of the homes
of the rich. Bad taste with ostentation moved her as deeply as true
stateliness. Her heart made outcry for experience of opulence. She
now despised the palaces of New York because they had no yards.
Newport houses had parks. Newport was the next candy-shop she wanted
to work in.
The splendor of the visit was dimmed for her, however, when she
learned that she would not be permitted to swim at Bailey's Beach.
Immediately she felt that swimming anywhere else was contemptible.
Still, she was seeing Newport, and she could not tell what swagger
fate might now be within reach of her hands--or her feet, rather--for
Kedzie was gaining her golden apples not by clutching at them, but by
kicking them off the tree of opportunity with her carefully manicured
little toes.
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