If her father noticed the absence of the letter she had slipped
from his pocket he said nothing about it as he drew the paper and
letters forth and laid them on the table. Kate had a few bad
minutes while this was going on, she was sure he hesitated an
instant and looked closely at the letters he sorted; but when he
said nothing, she breathed deeply in relief and went on being
joyous. It seemed to her that never had the family been in such a
good-natured state since Adam had married Agatha and her three
hundred acres with house, furniture, and stock. She went on in
ignorance of what had happened until after Sunday dinner the
following day. Then she had planned to visit Agatha and Adam. It
was very probable that it was because she was dressing for this
visit that Nancy Ellen decided on Kate's enlightenment, for she
could not have helped seeing that her sister was almost stunned at
times.
Kate gave her a fine opening. As she stood brushing her wealth of
gold with full-length sweeps of her arm, she was at an angle that
brought her facing the mirror before which Nancy Ellen sat
training waves and pinning up loose braids. Her hair was
beautiful and she slowly smiled at her image as she tried
different effects of wave, loose curl, braids high piled or flat.
Across her bed lay a dress that was a reproduction of one that she
had worn for three years, but a glorified reproduction. The
original dress had been Nancy Ellen's first departure from the
brown and gray gingham which her mother always had purchased
because it would wear well, and when from constant washing it
faded to an exact dirt colour it had the advantage of providing a
background that did not show the dirt. Nancy Ellen had earned the
money for a new dress by raising turkeys, so when the turkeys went
to town to be sold, for the first time in her life Nancy Ellen
went along to select the dress. No one told her what kind of
dress to get, because no one imagined that she would dare buy any
startling variation from what always had been provided for her.
But Nancy Ellen had stood facing a narrow mirror when she reached
the gingham counter and the clerk, taking one look at her fresh,
beautiful face with its sharp contrasts of black eyes and hair,
rose-tinted skin that refused to tan, and red cheeks and lips,
began shaking out delicate blues, pale pinks, golden yellows. He
called them chambray; insisted that they wore for ever, and were
fadeless, which was practically the truth. On the day that dress
was like to burst its waist seams, it was the same warm rosy pink
that transformed Nancy Ellen from the disfiguration of dirt-brown
to apple and peach bloom, wild roses and swamp mallow, a girl
quite as pretty as a girl ever grows, and much prettier than any
girl ever has any business to be. The instant Nancy Ellen held
the chambray under her chin and in an oblique glance saw the face
of the clerk, the material was hers no matter what the cost, which
does not refer to the price, by any means. Knowing that the dress
would be an innovation that would set her mother storming and fill
Kate with envy, which would probably culminate in the demand that
the goods be returned and exchanged for dirt-brown, when she
reached home Nancy Ellen climbed from the wagon and told her
father that she was going on to Adam's to have Agatha cut out her
dress so that she could begin to sew on it that night. Such
commendable industry met his hearty approval, so he told her to go
and he would see that Kate did her share of the work. Wise Nancy
Ellen came home and sat her down to sew on her gorgeous frock,
while the storm she had feared raged in all its fury; but the
goods was cut, and could not be returned. Yet, through it, a
miracle happened: Nancy Ellen so appreciated herself in pink that
the extreme care she used with that dress saved it from half the
trips of a dirt-brown one to the wash board and the ironing table;
while, marvel of marvels, it did not shrink, it did not fade, also
it wore like buckskin. The result was that before the season had
passed Kate was allowed to purchase a pale blue, which improved
her appearance quite as much in proportion as pink had Nancy
Ellen's; neither did the blue fade nor shrink nor require so much
washing, for the same reason. Three years the pink dress had been
Nancy Ellen's PIECE DE RESISTANCE; now she had a new one, much the
same, yet conspicuously different. This was a daring rose colour,
full and wide, peeping white embroidery trimming, and big pearl
buttons, really a beautiful dress, made in a becoming manner.
Kate looked at it in cheerful envy. Never mind! The coming
summer she would have a blue that would make that pink look silly.
From the dress she turned to Nancy Ellen, barely in time to see
her bend her head and smirk, broadly, smilingly, approvingly, at
her reflection in the glass.