It was thus a heavy blow to Laura to find, on going home, that Mother
had already bought her new spring dress. In one respect all was well:
it had been made by the local dressmaker, and consequently had not the
home-made cut that Laura abhorred. But the colour! Her heart fell to
the pit of her stomach the moment she set eyes on it, and only with
difficulty did she restrain her tears.--Mother had chosen a vivid
purple, of a crude, old-fashioned shade.

Now, quite apart from her personal feelings, Laura had come to know
very exactly, during the few months she had been at school, the views
held by her companions on the subject of colour. No matter how
sumptuous or how simple the material of which the dress was made, it
must be dark, or of a delicate tint. Brilliancy was a sign of
vulgarity, and put the wearer outside the better circles. Hence, at
this critical juncture, when Laura was striving to ape her fellows in
all vital matters, the unpropitious advent of the purple threatened to
undo her.

After her first dismayed inspection, she retreated to the bottom of the
garden to give vent to her feelings.

"I shall never be able to wear it," she moaned. "Oh, how COULD she buy
such a thing? And I needed a new dress so awfully, awfully much."

"It isn't really so bad, Laura," pleaded Pin. "It'll look darker, I'm
sure, if you've got it on--and if you don't go out in the sun."

"You haven't got to wear it. It was piggish of you, Pin, perfectly
piggish! You MIGHT have watched what she was buying."

"I did, Laura!" asseverated Pin, on the brink of tears. "There was a
nice dark brown and I said take that, you would like it better, and she
said hold your tongue, and did I think she was going to dress you as if
you were your own grandmother."

This dress hung for weeks in the most private corner of Laura's school
wardrobe. Her companions had all returned with new outfits, and on the
first assemblage for church there was a great mustering of one another,
both by girls and teachers. Laura was the only one to descend in the
dress she had worn throughout the winter. Her heart was sore with
bitterness, and when the handful of Episcopalians were marching to St
Stephen's-on-the-Hill, she strove to soothe her own wound.

"I can't think why my dress hasn't come," she said gratuitously, out of
this hurt, with an oblique glance to see how her partner took the
remark: it was the good-natured Maria Morell, who was resplendent in
velve