e lost fear of
the result. Together they made careful study of the fashion-papers which
the woman had preserved and which the girl had, the night before,
remembered with such vividness. Through discussion and reiterated
reassurance from her friend, she finally arrived at the decision that
with what she had at hand at home and what she could buy here, she could
prepare herself to meet the elegant lowlanders with a fairly ample
rivalry.

There were few bolts of cloth, of whatever quality or character in the
pitiful little general-store's stock which both women did not finger
speculatively that morning; there was not a piece of pinchbeck jewelry
in the small showcase which they did not study carefully. Especially
Madge dwelt on combs, for Layson, once, had mentioned combs as parts of
the adornment of the women whom he knew. There in the mountains young
girls did not wear them, save of the "circular" variety, designed to
hold back "shingled" tresses. But from underneath a box of faded
gum-drops and the store's one carton of cigars, came some of imitation
tortoise-shell, gilt ornamented, of the sort old ladies sometimes stuck
into their hirsute knots for mountain "doings" of great elegance, and
the best of these Madge bought. Also she bought lace--great quantities
of it, although, even after she had made the purchase, she had some
doubt of just what she would do with it; she also had some doubt about
its quality, for in the chest at home there had been lace, ripped from
her mother's wedding gown, of far different and more convincing texture
and design. She realized, however, that what was there must be what must
suffice and purchased nearly all the woman had of cheap, machine-made
mesh and home-worked, coarse-threaded tatting.

She could not manage gloves. The store had never had gloves in its stock
designed for anything but warmth, and, although Layson had explained to
her, in answer to her curious pleadings, that the girls he knew down in
the bluegrass sometimes wore gloves covering their bare arms to the
elbows, she gave up the hope of finding anything of that sort without a
visit to the distant valley town, and this was quite impossible, now
that her pony had gone lame, so she sighed and gave up gloves entirely.

But she bought ribbons by the bolt, some gay silk-handkerchiefs, a
little of the less obtrusive of the jewelry, and needles, thread and
such small trifles by the score to be utilized in making alterations in