untie! I should
just like to be in such a dress once--a minute!"

"I don't see any reason why not. _You_ couldn't do any hurt to it,
if 'twas made for a queen," responded Aunt Blin.

"I'll do up my hair on the top of my head," said Bel.

And forthwith, at the far end of the room, away from the delicate
robe and its scattered material, she got out her combs and brushes,
and let down her gleaming brown hair.

It took different shades, from umber to almost golden, this "funny
hair" of hers, as she called it. She thought it was because she had
faded it, playing out in the sun when she was a child; but it was
more like having got the shine into it. It did not curl, or wave;
but it grew in lovely arches, with roots even set, around her
temple and in the curves of her neck; and now, as she combed it up
in a long, beautiful mass, over her grasping hand, raising it with
each sweep higher toward the crown of her pretty head, all this
vigorous, beautiful growth showed itself, and marked with its
shadowy outline the dainty shapings. One twist at the top for the
comb to go in, and then she parted it in two, and coiled it like a
golden-bronze cable; and laid it round and round till the foremost
turn rested like a wreath midway about her head. She pulled three
fresh geranium leaves and a pink-white umbel of blossom from the
plant in the window, and tucked the cluster among the soft front
locks against the coil above the temple.

Then she took off the loose wrapping-sack she had thrown over her
shoulders, washed her fingers at the basin, and came back to her
seat under the lamp.

Aunt Blin looked up at her and smiled. It was like having it all
herself,--this youth and beauty,--to have it belonging to her, and
showing its charming ways and phases, in little Bel. Why shouldn't
the child, with her fair, sweet freshness, and the deep-green,
velvety leaves making her look already like a rose against which
they leaned themselves, have on this delicate rose dress? If things
stayed, or came, where they belonged, to whom should it more
fittingly fall to wear it than to her?

Bel watched the clock and Aunt Blin's fingers.

It was ten when the plaits and gathers were laid, and the skirt
basted to its band for the trying. Bel was dilatory one minute, and
in a hurry the next.

"It would be done too soon; but he might come in early; and, O dear,
they hadn't thought,--there was that puffing to put round the
corsage, bertha-wise, with the