Nellie appeared at the dining room door, her fingers stained with grape-juice. She was determined to help her mother with the jelly before she and her cousin left for their second houseboat holiday.
"You don't need any one's help when it comes to having your own way," retorted Mrs. Butler. "What do you wish this time?"
Madge lowered her voice. "Auntie, you know that upstairs in Mother's old trunk there are two rolls of silk—a roll of rose-color and one of turquoise blue. You have always said that Father brought them home to Mother from China just after I was born, and that Mother never had them made into dresses, because she died soon afterward, when Father failed to return from his trip."
Mrs. Butler bowed her head quietly. She looked away from her niece.
"Yes, that is what I have told you. I am saving the silks until you are older. You have very little else of your mother's except her jewelry."
Madge clasped her hands together pleadingly. "O Aunt Sue! why must I wait until I am grown for those silks? I wish you to give them to Nellie and me now. Please, please do. I am sure we are old enough to appreciate them. Nellie would be a perfect dream in the pink silk, and I should dearly love to have the blue. We never, never can need the dresses more than we do now! Why, in two or three years Nellie and I may be rich! Who knows? What is the use in keeping them for some future time, when Nellie and I need them at the present moment? You know we ought to have one handsome gown apiece, Auntie. Mrs. Curtis and Madeleine are always beautifully dressed."
"Yes, Mother, please let Madge have her way," entreated Nellie. "But I can't accept one of the frocks. I wouldn't take it away from you for the world."
"Very well, Auntie," replied Madge, with a little choke in her voice. "I am sorry I mentioned the subject to you. I don't care for the silks, then. I won't even look at them, unless Nellie will take one of them."
"Silly Madge!" remonstrated Eleanor, coming up behind her cousin and tweaking a loose curl of her auburn hair. "I know you wish me to share everything with you, and I thank you just the same. But, Madge, I can't accept one of those dresses. Don't you see, they were your mother's, and that makes all the difference in the world."
"I can't see what difference it makes if I wish to do it. You always divide everything you have with me, and I don't see why you can't let me be generous for once."