dress for the concert,
and found Patty's new pink evening gown spread out on top!" suggested
Priscilla.

"Oh, Patty! Do you s'pose he opened it?" asked Conny.

"I'm afraid he did. The cases are exact twins, and the keys both seem to
fit."

"I hope it looked all right?"

"Oh, yes, it looked beautiful. Everything was trimmed with pink ribbon.
I always pack with an eye to the maid, when I visit Uncle Tom."

"But the dinner and the wedding? What did you do without your clothes?"
asked Priscilla, in rueful remembrance of many trips to the
dressmaker's.

"That was the best part of it!" Patty affirmed. "Miss Lord simply
wouldn't let me get a respectable evening gown. She went with me
herself, and told Miss Pringle how to make it--just like all my dancing
dresses, nine inches off the floor, with elbow sleeves and a silly sash.
I hated it anyway."

"You must remember you are a school girl," Conny quoted, "and until--"

"Just wait till I tell you!" Patty triumphed. "Louise brought me one of
her dresses--one of her very best ball gowns, only she wasn't going to
wear it any more, because she had all new clothes in her trousseau. It
was white crepe embroidered in gold spangles, and it had a train. It was
long in front, too. I had to walk without lifting my feet. The maid came
and dressed me; she did my hair up on top of my head with a gold fillet,
and Aunt Emma loaned me a pearl necklace and some long gloves and I
looked perfectly beautiful--I did, honestly--you wouldn't have known me.
I looked _at least_ twenty!

"The man who took me in to dinner never dreamed that I hadn't been out
for years. And you know, he tried to flirt with me, he did, really. And
he was getting awfully old. He must have been almost forty. I felt as
though I were flirting with my grandfather. You know," Patty added, "it
isn't so bad, being grown up. I believe you really do have sort of a
good time--if you're pretty."

Six eyes sought the mirror for a reflective moment, before Patty resumed
her chronicle.

"And Uncle Tom made me tell about the suit-case at the dinner table.
Everybody laughed. It made a very exciting story. I told them about the
whole school going to the Glee Club, and falling in love in a body with
the third man from the end, and how we all cut his picture out of the
program and pasted it in our watches. And then about my sitting across
from him in the train and changing suit-cases. Mr. Harper--the man next
to me--said it was th