The "O father!" was not without its weight. Also Mr. Waylie, whom Mr. Goldthwaite called on and consulted, threw his opinion into the favoring scale, precisely as Leslie had foreseen. He was a teacher who did not imagine all possible educational advantage to be shut up within the four walls of his or any other schoolroom. "She is just the girl to whom it will do great good," he said. Leslie's last week's lessons were not accomplished the less satisfactorily for this word of his, and the pleasure it opened to her.
There came a few busy days of stitching and starching, and crimping and packing, and then, in the last of June, they would be off. They were to go on Monday. The Haddens came over on Saturday afternoon, just as Leslie had nearly put the last things into her trunk,—a new trunk, quite her own, with her initials in black paint upon the russet leather at each end. On the bed lay her pretty balmoral suit, made purposely for mountain wears and just finished. The young girls got together here, in Leslie's chamber, of course.
"Oh, how pretty! It's perfectly charming,—the loveliest balmoral I ever saw in my life!" cried Jeannie Hadden, seizing upon it instantly as she entered the room. "Why, you'll look like a hamadryad, all in these wood browns!"
It was an uncommonly pretty striped petticoat, in two alternating shades of dark and golden brown, with just a hair-line of black defining their edges; and the border was one broad, soft, velvety band of black, and a narrower one following it above and below, easing the contrast and blending the colors. The jacket, or rather shirt, finished at the waist with a bit of a polka frill, was a soft flannel, of the bright brown shade, braided with the darker hue and with black; and two pairs of bright brown raw-silk stockings, marked transversely with mere thread-lines of black, completed the mountain outfit.
"Yes; all I want is"—said Leslie, stopping short as she took up the hat that lay there also,—last summer's hat, a plain black straw, with a slight brim, and ornamented only with a round lace veil and two bits of ostrich feather. "But never mind! It'll do well enough!"
As she laid it down again and ceased speaking, Cousin Delight came in, straight from Boston, where she had been doing two days' shopping; and in her hand she carried a parcel in white paper. I was going to say a round parcel, which it would have been but for something which ran out in a sharp tangent from one side, and pushed the wrappings into an odd angle. This she put into Leslie's hands.
"A fresh—fig-leaf—for you, my dear."
"What does she mean?" cried the Haddens, coming close to see.
"Only a little Paradise fashion of speech between Cousin Del and me," said Leslie, coloring a little and laughing, while she began, somewhat hurriedly, to remove the wrappings.
"What have you done? And how did you come to think?" she exclaimed, as the thing inclosed appeared: a round brown straw turban,—not a staring turban, but one of those that slope with a little graceful downward droop upon the brow,—bound with a pheasant's breast, the wing shooting out jauntily, in the tangent I mentioned, over the right ear; all in bright browns, in lovely harmony with the rest of the hamadryad costume.