a
little!" It was but a breathing; then I remembered the child at my feet,
and raised him, and smiled back on Mrs. Strathsay, and went on with a
lighter heart to set my chests and drawers straight.

The days slipped into weeks, and they were busy, one and all, ordering
Effie's wardrobe; for, however much I took the lead, she was the elder
and was to be brought out. My mother never meant to bring _me_ out, I
think,--she could not endure the making of parade, and the hearing
the Thomsons and Lindsays laugh at it all, when 't was but for such a
flecked face,--she meant I should slip into life as I could. We had had
the seamstresses, and when they were gone sometimes Mrs. Strathsay came
and sat among us with her work;--she never pricked finger with fell
or hem, but the heaviest task she took was the weaving of the white
leaf-wreaths in and out the lace-web before her there,--and as we
stitched, we talked, and she lent a word how best an old breadth could
be turned, another gown refitted,--for we had to consider such things,
with all our outside show of establishment.

Margray came running through the garden that afternoon, and up where we
sat, and over her arm was fluttering no end of gay skirts and ribbons.

"I saved this pink muslin--it's real Indian, lascar lawn, fine as
cobweb--for you, Alice," she said. "It's not right to leave it to the
moths,--but you'll never need it now. It shall be Effie's, and she'll
look like a rose-bud in it,--with her yellow locks floating."

"Yes," said I.

"You'll not be wanting such bright things now, child; you'll best wear
grays, and white, and black."

"Indeed, then, I sha'n't," I said. "If I'm no longer lovely myself, I'll
be decked out in braw clothes, that I may please the eye one way or
another."

"No use, child," sighed my mother 'twixt her teeth, and not meaning for
me to hear.

"So would I, Ailie," said Mary Strathsay, quickly. "There's much in fine
fibres and soft shades that gives one the womanly idea. You're the best
shape among us all, my light lissomeness, and your gowns shall fit it
rarely. Nay, Margray, let Alice have the pink."

"Be still, Mary Strathsay!" said my mother. "Alice will wear white this
summer; 'tis most suitable. She has white slips and to spare."

"But in the winter?" urged the other. "'Twill be sad for the child, and
we all so bright. There's my pearl silk,--I'm fairly tired of it,--and
with a cherry waist-piece"----

"You lose breath," said m