would look on you. Mary is plain; I reckon there is no harm in saying
that, even if her mother _is_ dead."

"She will look better in black," said Mrs. Drake, "or pure white.
Colors as full of life as this dress has would die dead on a dingy
complexion like Mary's, or any of the Cobb women, for that matter.
They look for the world as if they lived on coffee and couldn't git it
out of their systems. Dolly, shuck off your dress and try it on."

Dolly needed no urging. In her excitement she forgot to correct her
mother's speech, which she would have done on any other occasion, and
began at once to divest her slender form of her waist and skirt,
dropping the latter at her feet and springing lightly out of the
circular heap. The seamstress took up the dress carefully and held it
in readiness.

"You will be a regular butterfly in it," she said, laughingly. "You
are light on your feet as a grasshopper anyway."

While the two women were buttoning and hooking the garment on her
Dolly kept up a running fire of amusing comments, arching her
beautiful bare neck as she eyed herself in the mirror on the bureau.

"It will come in handy for meeting on the First Sunday," Mrs. Drake
remarked. "Folks will have on their best if the weather is fine, an' I
don't see no sign o' rain. It will make Ann awful jealous; she is just
at the age to think she is as big as anybody, an' don't seem to
remember that Dolly makes 'er own money. But Dolly's to blame for
that; she spoils Ann constantly by letting her wear things she ought
to keep for herself."