There was much hurry and excitement for the next week. Edna did not go to school at all during that time, for the dressmaker was likely at any time to want her to stand up to be fitted, something Edna did not like at all. "I believe I'd just as soon go to school," she fretted while Miss Marsh, with her mouth full of pins, pinched up here, and trimmed off there, bidding the little girl to "stand still."
"I am standing as still as a mouse," she protested.
"About as still as that canary bird," returned Miss Marsh. "Don't shrug your shoulders while I cut out this armhole. I might snip you with the scissors."
That was something really to be dreaded, so Edna did stand very still while the cold steel points circled her plump shoulder. "O, dear!" she sighed, when the operation was finished, "I hope I sha'n't need any more clothes for a year."
But even the discomfort of dress-fitting did not do away with the pleasure the little girl felt in her pretty new frocks, and it seemed no time before her trunk stood ready packed and she had said good-bye to Gyp and Lilypaws, to Bobby in his cage, and to the chickens, each and every one; her own special pet hen, Snowflake, being entreated not to hatch out any new chickens till Edna should return.
It was rather a solemn moment, after all, when mamma hugged her and kissed her, with the tears running down her cheeks; when the cook, Jane, hoped they'd see her again; and when the boys thrust parting gifts into her hands—Frank a small mouth organ, and Charlie a wad of something which was afterward discovered to be taffy, wrapped in brown paper; when Celia winked away the tear-drops from her lashes and called her "precious little sister." It was therefore with the very opposite of a smile upon her face that she climbed up the steps into the car. But the dimples soon came back again as the car moved off, and the boys, standing on a woodpile, cheered and waved their hats as the little head at the window nodded good-bye.
It was quite a long journey to the city to which Edna was going, a whole day and night to be on the cars, and after the first few hours the little girl began to get very restless. Even the picture papers her father bought her, and the little excitement of stopping once in a while at a station, where could be seen queer-looking people, did not serve to keep Edna from getting very tired; but it grew dark early, and when the porter came in to make up the berths she felt that she would be quite ready to clamber up into that funny little bed above her papa's.
"It's just like being put away on a shelf," she laughed. "Suppose I should tumble out, papa?"
"Then I think it would be better for you to take the lower berth," he replied.
"O, no. I like it best up here. I can peep out better. Are you going to bed, too, papa?"