a's hands were locked till they
showed white at the knuckles. "If you don't cut the goods away the green
petticoat won't gleam through the lace! You see, it's a rose dress and a
rose has shining green leaves, just showing."

The plea was ardent, but Mrs. Procter was firm. Indeed she did not
glance at Suzanna. The reaction from her days of hard and continuous
work was setting in. She merely said: "Suzanna, we must make that dress
last a long time. I made it so that it can be lengthened five inches. We
can't weaken it by cutting the goods away from under the lace. Now,
dear, go and see that the children aren't in mischief. I must start
supper."

CHAPTER V

SUZANNA COMES TO A DECISION

The children were playing contentedly in the road, Suzanna assured
herself. And finding them so, she wandered disconsolately back to the
front porch, where seated in a little rocking chair she stared straight
before her. She felt as one thrown suddenly from a great height. One
moment she had been thrillingly happy, the next, the bitter fruit of
disappointment touched her lips. So events occur lightningly quick in
this world. The day itself was as beautiful as it had been an hour
before, yet its sun had ceased to shine for little Suzanna, since the
crowning touch of The Dress, the poetic completeness of it, was denied
her.

Years ago it seemed she had wakened in the morning after dreaming of a
rose gown with its glimpses of cool green flickering through rows of
open lace; but no more could she dream, since that lace was now
condemned to blindness, unable even to hint at concealed beauties, and
this because Economy, the stern god of the Procter home, so ordained.

Two tears at last found their slow way down her cheek. Not the least of
her woe was caused by the realization that now the dress was
ingloriously what Maizie had termed it, a pale pink lawn at ten cents a
yard, bearing no appeal to her imagination, fulfilling no place in
Suzanna's great Scheme of Things.

Suzanna's distress, as the days passed, did not abate. She never spoke
of the dress, nor did she go to look at it as it hung shrouded in cheese
cloth in the hall closet upstairs. No longer did she look forward with
delight to the day when feelingly she should recite the troubles and the
heroism of "The Little Martyr of Smyrna."

Instead she went quietly about performing her customary duties, finding
for the time no real zest in life.

Mrs. Procter, innocent of th