A Daughter of the Land

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.