she took her cousin into her confidence.

"Mother hasn't left a thing unlocked but my school clothes," she said.
"I can't find a stocking except my red ones and my striped ones and some
horrid old brown things. She hasn't left out a single white pair for
Sundays; I don't see what she could have been thinking of." Nowadays
little girls might not think that such a distressing matter, but
twenty-five years ago no stockings but white ones were considered proper
for full-dress occasions.

"I'll lend you some," said Lottie obligingly. "I have a pair of fine
white lamb's wool that will fit you. They are a little small for me, and
ma put them away to keep because grandma knit them herself after she was
eighty years old. But I know she would not care if you wore them just
once."

"Then let's get them to-night and not say anything about it until after
to-morrow," said Ann. "She might say I ought not to wear the shoes, and
I'm just bound to have my own way for once in my life."

When Ann's dark eyes flashed as wickedly as they did then, Lottie always
submitted without a word. Opening a big chest in one corner of the room,
she began fumbling among the pile of neatly wrapped winter flannels it
contained, while Ann held the candle.

"I saw ma put them in this corner," said Lottie. "I am sure. Oh! here
they are," she exclaimed, and as she unfolded them she sneezed so
suddenly that it nearly put out the candle. "It's the red pepper," she
explained. "They're full of it, to keep out the moths. Hold them up and
shake them hard."