sing no slippers, she
carefully blacked and polished her shoes, which had been clumsily
resoled, and fastened into the strings of each small rosettes of red
ribbon; after which she practised swinging the train of her skirt until
she was proud of her manipulation of it.

She had no powder, but found in her grandfather's room a lump of
magnesia, which he was in the habit of taking for heartburn, and passed
it over and over her brown face and hands. Then a lingering gaze into
her small mirror gave her joy at last; she yearned so hard to see
herself charming that she did see herself so. Admiration came, and she
told herself that she was more attractive to look at than she had ever
been in her life, and that, perhaps, at last she might begin to be
sought for like other girls. The little glass showed a sort of
prettiness in her thin, unmatured young face; tripping dance-tunes ran
through her head, her feet keeping the time--ah, she did so hope to
dance often that night! Perhaps--perhaps she might be asked for every
number. And so, wrapping an old water-proof cloak about her, she took
her grandfather's arm and sallied forth, with high hopes in her beating
heart.

It was in the dressing-room that the change began to come. Alone, at
home in her own ugly little room, she had thought herself almost
beautiful; but here in the brightly lighted chamber crowded with the
other girls it was different. There was a big [v]cheval-glass at one end
of the room, and she faced it, when her turn came--for the mirror was
popular--with a sinking spirit. There was the contrast, like a picture
painted and framed. The other girls all wore their hair after the
fashion introduced to Canaan by Mamie Pike the week before, on her
return from a visit to Chicago. None of them had "crimped" and none had
bedecked their tresses with artificial flowers. Her alterations of the
wedding-dress had not been successful; the skirt was too short in front
and higher on one side than on the other, showing too plainly the
heavy-soled shoes, which had lost most of their polish in the walk
through the snow. The ribbon rosettes were fully revealed, and as she
glanced at their reflection, she heard the words, "Look at that train
and those rosettes!" whispered behind her, and saw in the mirror two
pretty young women turn away with their handkerchiefs over their mouths
and retreat hurriedly to an alcove. All the feet in the room except
Ariel's were in dainty kid or satin sli