rclothes. I could see the lovely chemise mother embroidered lying
on top of a pile of bedding, and over and over Sally had said that
every stitch in the wedding gown must be taken by hand. The Princess
stood beside the bed. A funny little tight hat like a man's and a
riding whip lay on a chair close by. I couldn't see what she wore--her
usual riding clothes probably--for she had a nip in each shoulder of a
dress she was holding to her chin and looking down at. After all, I
hadn't seen everything! Never before or since have I seen a lovelier
dress than that. It was what always had been wrapped in the sheet on
the foot of the bed and I hadn't got a peep at it. The pale green silk
with tiny pink moss roses in it, that I had been thinking was the
wedding dress, looked about right to wash the dishes in, compared with
this.

This was a wedding dress. You didn't need any one to tell you. The
Princess had as much red as I ever had seen in her cheeks, her eyes
were bright, and she was half-laughing and half-crying.

"Oh you lucky, lucky girl!" she was saying. "What a perfectly
beautiful bride you will be! Never have I seen a more wonderful dress!
Where did you get the material?"

Now we had been trained always to wait for mother to answer a visitor
as she thought suitable, or at least to speak one at a time and not
interrupt; but about six of those grown people told the Princess all at
the same time how our oldest sister Elizabeth was married to a merchant
who had a store at Westchester and how he got the dress in New York,
and gave it to Sally for her wedding present, or she never could have
had it.

The Princess lifted it and set it down softly. "Oh look!" she cried.
"Look! It will stand alone!"

There it stood! Silk stiff enough to stand by itself, made into a
little round waist, cut with a round neck and sleeves elbow length and
flowing almost to where Sally's knees would come. It was a pale
pearl-gray silk crossed in bars four inches square, made up of a dim
yellow line almost as wide as a wheat straw, with a thread of black on
each side of it, and all over, very wide apart, were little faint
splashes of black as if they had been lightly painted on. The skirt
was so wide it almost filled the room. Every inch of that dress was
lined with soft, white silk. There was exquisite lace made into a flat
collar around the neck, and ruffled from sight up the inside of the
wide sleeves. That was the beginning