"I can't go into town this way," said Marian miserably. "I look like a beggar girl."
"Anybody could see that you had been picking blackberries," said Alice consolingly.
"But with such a looking frock they will laugh at me," said Marian tearfully. "Oh, dear, I wish I had worn something that didn't tear."
"As the rest of us did," remarked Marjorie complacently.
"If you had only been careful and had kept on the edge of the thicket," Stella said, then seeing how distressed Marian really was, she went on: "You might take off your frock; I really think you would look better without than with it."
"Oh!" Marian's cheeks flamed. To appear before the world half-dressed was not to be thought of.
Stella looked her over critically. The frock she wore was a white muslin spotted with pink, too frail a garment for such an expedition.
"The waist isn't so terrible," said Alice examining it. "If we had some pins we could fasten the trimming on so it wouldn't show the tears much."
"Take off your frock, Marian," decided Stella; "I know what we can do."
Marian obeyed the assured voice, and presently Stella was tearing the ragged skirt from the waist, afterward pinning the trimming of the waist in place. "Now come here," she said to Marian.