admired
you! It was a natural longing, for every girl wishes to be attractive
to others, and feels a pang if obliged to realise that the tribute of
admiration can never be hers; but Kate was too sensible to grieve long
over impossibilities. "I shall have to be extra amiable to make up for
it, that's all!" she told herself philosophically, as she lifted the
hand-glass, and wriggled about before the glass to view the effect of
the new coiffure. It was most elaborate and hairdresser-windowish in
effect, and if it were not exactly becoming, that was perhaps more her
own misfortune than the fault of the operator, who had bestowed such
pains upon the erection. So she declared truthfully enough that she had
never felt so fine in her life, and threatened to sit at the piano the
whole of the evening, so that all beholders might have an opportunity of
admiring her "back hair."

Her toilet was now finished, but Ethel's bows were waiting to be tied
and smoothed out, and Flora had to be laced into her dress, and to be
consoled when again visited with the dread of finishing her career as
the fat woman in a show. Finally, the first bell for tea was heard
pealing downstairs, and away ran the three girls, leaving poor
Cinderella to tidy the cubicles, and almost forgetting to thank her for
her services; for in truth they had been so cheerfully rendered as to
appear a favour given, rather than received.

Left to herself, Pixie stole into the corridor and flattened herself
into a doorway to watch the gay figures descending the staircase. The
tidying away could wait for a few moments, but it was not often that one
had the opportunity of watching so festive a scene. Doors opened on
every side, and out they came, one girl after another, so smart and fine
that one could hardly recognise them for the blue-serged damsels of
ordinary school life. Down the stairs they tripped, with rustlings of
silk and crinklings of muslin, dainty white shoes, looking daintier than
ever against the well-worn carpet. Such a crowd of girls, and each one
looking brighter and happier than the one before. Lottie in white,
Margaret in blue, with her brown hair coiled round her head in a shining
chestnut coronet, one after another, until at last there was no one
left, and silence reigned in the corridor, broken only by a little sniff
and sigh from the shadow of a doorway. "And one little p-ig stayed at
h-ome," sighed Pixie, trying hard to laugh, and assiduou