and decided that she would
put on what she needed of them on the morrow, even though they were
rumpled with long lying away. She even searched out an old pair of her own
stockings and laid them on a chair with the other things. They were neatly
darned as all things had always been under her stepmother's supervision.
Further search brought a pair of partly worn prunella slippers to light,
with narrow ankle ribbons.

Then Marcia took down the pink sprigged chintz that she had made a year
ago and laid it near the other things, with a bit of black velvet and the
quaint old brooch. She felt a little dubious about appearing on such a
great occasion, almost in Albany, in a chintz dress and with no wrap.
Stay! There was the white crepe shawl, all her own, that David had brought
her. She had not felt like wearing it to Hannah Heath's wedding, it seemed
too precious to take near an unloving person like Hannah. Before that she
had never felt an occasion great enough. Now she drew it forth
breathlessly. A white crepe shawl and a pink calico sunbonnet! Marcia
laughed softly. But then, what matter! David had said wear it.

All things were ready for the morrow now. There were even her white lace
mitts that Aunt Polly in an unusual fit of benevolence had given her.

Then, as if to make the change complete, she searched out an old night
robe, plain but smooth and clean and arrayed herself in it, and so,
thankful, happy, she lay down as she had been bidden and fell asleep.

David in the room below pondered, strange to say, the subject of dress.
There was some pride beneath it all, of course; there always is behind the
great problem of dress. It was the rejected bonnet lying in the corner
with its blue ribbons limp and its blue flowers crushed that made that
subject paramount among so many others he might have chosen for his
night's meditation.

He was going over to close the parlor window, when he saw the thing lying
innocent and discarded in the corner. Though it bore an injured look, it
yet held enough of its original aristocratic style to cause him to stop
and think.

It was all well enough to suggest that Marcia wear a pink sunbonnet. It
sounded deliciously picturesque. She looked lovely in pink and a sunbonnet
was pretty and sensible on any one; but the morrow was a great day. David
would be seen of many and his wife would come under strict scrutiny.
Moreover it was possible that Kate might be upon the scene to jeer at her
si