? Annie could not bring herself to ask
Hester to help her, and yet, at the same time, it would never, never do
to disappoint Nora! Annie had brought herself to consider Nora her own
special patient. She had spent an hour with her in the morning and
nearly two hours in the afternoon, and during the afternoon visit the
girls had talked a good deal about the frocks. It was arranged between
them that they were to be surprise frocks, and that Mr. and Mrs.
Lorrimer were to know nothing about them until they saw Nora well once
more and arrayed in the prettiest of the three. Annie had hunted up some
fashion-books, and had consulted Nora about the shape and the cut of the
sleeves, and the way the skirt was to be hung and the embroidery sewn
on. Both girls had been animated over the discussion, and Nora had been
too interested to feel fatigue.

Well, that happened a few hours ago; now Annie, on her knees, bent over
her empty trunk with an expression of keen dismay.

What was she to do? How could she possibly raise the money necessary to
the purchase of the cambric? She calculated that the cambric and
embroidery necessary for the making of three simple dresses would cost
from twenty-five to thirty shillings This was not a large sum, but
everything is by proportion, and for poor Annie, with five shillings in
her purse and very little chance of any more money coming to her until
the end of her visit to the Grange, thirty shillings seemed absolutely
unattainable.

"But I must get it somehow!" she murmured, flinging herself on the floor
by her open trunk as she spoke. "I'm not going to be beaten by a little
paltry sum like that! I promised Nora the frocks, and she shall have
them! I didn't care a bit for Nora yesterday--she didn't suit me, and I
thought her affected; but if I hadn't been so desperately thoughtless,
she'd have been well now; and, as I have been in part the cause of her
accident, I'm simply bound to look after her. Have those frocks she
must! Poor little bit of frivolity, nothing in the world will soothe her
nerves so much as seeing me making them for her. But that money--that
thirty shillings! Oh, _dash_ that thirty shillings! Why should a mean
little sum like that worry a girl almost into fits? Get it, I _will_;
and ask Hester to help me, I _won't_! The frocks are to be a secret
between Nora and me; the secret will be half the fun. Now, how am I to
get the money? Have I anything to sell?"

Annie rose from the floo