o great that she was ready to cry, but her face soon
cleared and she began a search for the keys. Under the rug, in the vases
on the mantel, behind photograph frames, into every crack where a key
could be hidden, she peered with eager brown eyes. It was not to be
found. Finally she climbed on a chair to the highest closet shelf, where
she came across something that made her give a cry of delight. It was
the box that held the green kid shoes.

"I'll wear this much of my party clothes, anyhow," she declared,
scrambling down with the box in her arms. Then followed a fruitless
search for the silk stockings that matched them. They were not in the
box with the shoes, where they had always been kept, and a rummage
through the drawers showed nothing suitable.

She heard her Aunt Sally's cook blowing the horn for supper before she
gave up the search. That night after she and Lottie had gone up to bed,
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."

Several sh