. Dow, Mrs. Freeze, and Mrs. Spinny. Nell was peering
over my shoulder into the little cracked looking-glass that Mrs. Dow
had taken from its nail on her kitchen wall and brought down to the
church under her shawl that morning. When she realized that we were
alone, Nell whispered to me in the quick, fierce way she had:

"Say, Peggy, won't you go up and stay with me to-night? Scott
Spinny's asked to take me home, and I don't want to walk up with him
alone."

"I guess so, if you'll ask my mother."

"Oh, I'll fix her!" Nell laughed, with a toss of her head which
meant that she usually got what she wanted, even from people much
less tractable than my mother.

In a moment our tiring-women were back again. The three old
ladies--at least they seemed old to us--fluttered about us, more
agitated than we were ourselves. It seemed as though they would
never leave off patting Nell and touching her up. They kept trying
things this way and that, never able in the end to decide which way
was best. They wouldn't hear to her using rouge, and as they
powdered her neck and arms, Mrs. Freeze murmured that she hoped we
wouldn't get into the habit of using such things. Mrs. Spinny
divided her time between pulling up and tucking down the "illusion"
that filled in the square neck of Nelly's dress. She didn't like
things much low, she said; but after she had pulled it up, she stood
back and looked at Nell thoughtfully through her glasses. While the
excited girl was reaching for this and that, buttoning a slipper,
pinning down a curl, Mrs. Spinny's smile softened more and more
until, just before _Esther_ made her entrance, the old lady tiptoed
up to her and softly tucked the illusion down as far as it would go.

"She's so pink; it seems a pity not," she whispered apologetically
to Mrs. Dow.

Every one admitted that Nelly was the prettiest girl in Riverbend,
and the gayest--oh, the gayest! When she was not singing, she was
laughing. When she was not laid up with a broken arm, the outcome of
a foolhardy coasting feat, or suspended from school because she ran
away at recess to go buggy-riding with Guy Franklin, she was sure to
be up to mischief of some sort. Twice she broke through the ice and
got soused in the river because she never looked where she skated or
cared what happened so long as she went fast enough. After the
second of these duckings our three dressers declared that she was
trying to be a Baptist despite herself.

Mrs. Spinn