he had no intention of wearing the dress without
Aunt Maria's knowledge, but she did intend to wear it first, and tell
about it afterwards, accepting whatever punishment the woman saw fit to
give her for the transgression. So she smuggled the gown out of the
house in her school-bag, and up among the tall boulders beyond the
Carson place, where there was no possibility of anyone finding her. Here
she dressed, and under one great rock hid the once admired but now
despised green gingham. Then with her long cape covering her quaintly
gowned figure, she hurried up to Carrie's door to call for her playmate,
having waited until the last minute in the hope that her friends would
be gone. Nor was she disappointed. The doors were locked and no one came
to answer her knock; so with flying feet she sped toward the hall,
noting that only a few people were bound in that direction, and knowing
that most of the expected visitors were already seated within.

"Oh, Theodora Gabrielle!" exclaimed the teacher as the child flew up the
aisle to her place on the platform, "I was so afraid something had
happened to keep you away. It would never do to have our best speaker
absent, you know;" and she smiled into the shining black eyes of the
breathless Tabitha; but the next instant the smile faded. Tabitha had
loosened her cape, and Miss Brooks caught sight of the quaint, queer old
gown underneath. "Child!" she cried involuntarily. "Whatever possessed
you to put on that rig?"

The beloved silk dress called a "rig!" Tabitha was dismayed, and the
tears came welling into the bright eyes, as with quivering lip she
confessed, "It was the only _white_ dress I could get, Miss Brooks. I
thought it would be very 'propriate, for I am to speak a war piece, you
know. Aunt Maria had this when she was a little girl, and she must be
pretty much older than the war."

"I meant that the silk was too good for common wear, dear," fibbed the
teacher, seeing the sorrow in the thin, brown, wistful face. "It is a
pretty idea to wear a dress that was made in war times, and I never
would have thought of it myself. But we must take off the ribbons from
your hair, Theodora, and fix it in the old-fashioned way to go with your
gown. I remember a picture of my mother with her hair done in the
queerest braids. Come, we will have to hurry."

As this inspiration flashed through the young teacher's mind, she saw a
way out of the dilemma so that neither child nor school should b