ed her
and was in turn, disliked by Nina.

"She is not!" flared Rosemary. "And, Aunt Trudy she has the
loveliest blue velvet dress. She says she can wear it under her
apron and then, after dinner when we take our aprons off, she will
look all right. Couldn't I wear my new brown velvet that night?"

"Why I don't know," replied Aunt Trudy uncertainly. "I don't think
it would be very suitable, dear. What do you think, Hugh?"

"Don't know anything about clothes," he said shortly.

"You only want to wear it because Nina Edmonds is going to wear a
velvet dress," commented Sarah shrewdly.

"It will be awfully hot," said Shirley with unexpected wisdom.

"Well, I'm going to wear it, if Aunt Trudy doesn't say not to,"
announced Rosemary, her chin in the air. "Though I'd give anything
if I had some high heeled pumps to make me look taller. Honestly,
Hugh, I'm about the only girl in our class who doesn't wear 'em."

He smiled at her pleasantly, but there was no yielding in his voice.

"When you're sixteen, if you still want them, I'll have nothing to
say," he said. "Mother has said you are not to wear them until then,
you know, and if I had my way no woman, sixteen or sixty, should
teeter about in silly anguish. I can't help it if the girls are
skipping five years, Rosemary; as I've often reminded you, the
calendar says you are still a little girl."

Rosemary pouted a little, but she did not dare argue, the subject of
high heeled shoes having been long one of her secret sorrows. She
knew from experience that her brother would never consent to the
purchase of a pair and though she mentioned them from time to time,
it was without hope of converting him to her opinion.

She was in her room that night, collecting her cooking notes and
recipes, in preparation for making out the important menu, when
Winnie peeped in. The brown velvet dress lay on Rosemary's bed where
she had spread it, the better to admire its charms. It was a new
frock and so far she had worn it only twice. Simply made, with a
square neck and a touch of ivory colored lace in the form of a
vestee and at the bottom of the sleeves, it was the most becoming
dress Rosemary had ever had. She knew it, too.

"There's just one thing I want to say to you, Rosemary," announced
Winnie earnestly, "and that's this: you have got to make up your
mind which is the more important--this dinner or your dress. Because
cooking a good dinner takes all the brains a cook has--I oug