er. I don't believe
I'll ever be able to decide, but I'll think hard all day. And now tell
me what I am to wear."

She went to her room and got her dark blue taffeta and showed the
progress of yesterday with the new dark net sleeves to replace the ugly
ruffly white lace ones.

"That's going to be fine!" approved Godmother. "Now, this morning I am
going to help you make the new yoke and collar; and then"--she squinted
up her eyes and began looking as if she were studying a picture the way
so many picture-lovers like to do, through only a narrow slit of vision
which sharpens perspective and intensifies detail--"I think we'll go
shopping. Yesterday, when I was hurrying past and hadn't time to stop
for longer than a peek, I saw in a Broadway shop-window some short
strings of pink imitation coral of the most adorable colour, for--what
do you think? Twenty-five cents a string! I've a picture of you in my
mind, with your dark blue dress and one of those coral strings about
your throat."

Godmother's picture looked very sweet indeed when she came out to
dinner that evening. It was astonishing how many of her fairies Mary
Alice had found in two short weeks! The lovely lines of her shoulders,
which she had never known were the chief of all the "lines of beauty,"
were no longer disfigured by stiff, outstanding bretelles and
ruffled-lace sleeves, but revealed in all their delicate charm by the
close-fitting plain dark net. And above them rose the head of such
unsuspected loveliness of contour, which rats and puffs and pompadour
had once deformed grotesquely, but which the wonderful new
hair-dressing accentuated in a transfiguring degree. The poise of Mary
Alice's head, the carriage of her shoulders, were fine. But she had
never known, before, that those were big points of beauty. So she
_did_ took lovely, with the tiny touch of coral at her throat, the pink
flush in her cheeks, and the sparkle of excitement in her eyes. It was
her first "party" in New York, and she and Godmother had had the most
delicious day getting ready for it. Mary Alice couldn't really believe
that all they did was to fix over her blue "jumper dress" and invest
twenty-five cents in pink beads. But it seemed that when you were with
a person like Godmother, what you actually did was magnified a
thousandfold by the enchanting way you did it. Mary Alice was
beginning to see that a fairy wand which can turn a pumpkin into a gold
coach is not exc