Mrs. Drake had advanced to the edge of the porch. "Hurry up," she
said, eagerly. "Miss Stella Munson is in my room waiting for you. She
come at two o'clock and has been here ever since."

"What does she want?" Dolly asked, putting her books down on the upper
step of the porch.

"I don't want to tell you till you see it," Mrs. Drake said, smiling
mysteriously; "it is by all odds the prettiest thing you ever laid
eyes on, an' she says she is willin' to let it go for the bare cost of
the material. She is in a sort o' tight for cash."


"A hat?" Dolly inquired, eagerly.

"Something you need worse than a hat," the mother smiled. "It is a
dress--an organdie, a regular beauty. She made it for Mary Cobb, and
you know Mary always orders the best, but, the poor girl's mother
bein' dead, the dress come back on Miss Stella's hands. She could
force Mary to stick to her agreement, but she hates to do it when the
girl has to put on black and is in so much trouble. Even as it is, you
wouldn't have had the chance at it, but you and Mary are exactly of a
size, an' there'll be no alterations to make."

"Oh, I want to see it!" Dolly sprang lightly up the steps and hurried
into her mother's room on the right of the hall, where a tall,
angular, middle-aged spinster sat with her stained and needle-pricked
fingers linked in her lap.

"How are you, Miss Stella?" she cried, kissing the thin cheek