Well, just before dark, I got out that pink silk dress and the two long braids, and shut myself in with the looking-glass over my bureau, which is always reflecting, but says nothing, or one might be afraid to trust it on some occasions.
I was almost ready, when Cousin Emily E. come in so suddenly that I hopped up from my chair, and gave a scary scream. The face in the glass turned all sorts of colors, and seemed to scream too, and looked half-frightened to death. Cousin E. E. laughed, and shut the door. Holding up both hands, says she:
"What, in that dress! My dear cousin, it is to a theatre we are going."
"Well, I reckon your letter told me that," says I, a-spreading out the skirt of my dress along the floor.
"But we do not dress like that for a theatre," says she, a-looking down at her black silk dress, which was all fluttered over with narrow ruffles. "No trains, dear Cousin Frost, no lace—a plain walking-dress and bonnet—nothing more?"
I looked at the shiny waves of pink silk lying around my feet, and at that face in the glass, and was just ready to burst out a-crying. It was too bad.
"You thought this just the thing when we went to hear that Miss Nilsson sing," says I, looking mournfully at that face in the glass, which was almost crying.
"Yes; but that was the opera—this only a theatre. You see the difference," says she.
"No, I don't," says I.
"Well, you will," says she. "It's the fashion. You, who write about fashionable life so beautifully, ought to know that."