“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I’ve thought of the beautifullest plan to give Jeanette a dress and not offend her! Oh, do approve of it, Mother, please do! It’s such a good plan!”
“Tell me about it, Betty, so that I can enjoy it, too.”
“Well, you see, Mother, to-day’s the tenth. So next Saturday’s the fourteenth—Valentine’s Day, you know. Now, I want to get a lovely dress for Jeanette, and make it into a valentine, and send it to her! Don’t you see, nobody could get angry at a valentine, and you can’t put your name to it, and so she’d have to keep it!”
Betty looked so radiant over her plan that Mrs. McGuire hadn’t the heart to disapprove of it, though she felt a little dubious about its wisdom.
“Let me think it over,” she said quietly.
“But remember, Mother, I mean to make it like a real valentine. Put it in a box, you know, and lace paper around it, and sort of hearts and darts and things, and a verse, a lovely, loving verse. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Yes; that effect would greatly help it, for valentines nowadays often contain a lace handkerchief or bonbons or something by way of a gift. Your plan seems to grow on me, Betty.”
“Oh, Mother, how lovely you are!” Betty jumped up from her low seat to give her mother a most enthusiastic squeeze, and then, big girl though she was, stayed cuddled in her arms while they continued the conversation.
“How can you get a dress to fit her, my child?”
“I thought about that. But if we just buy one all ready-made, you know, about my size, I’m sure it will be about right for her. And Mrs. Porter can take it in or let it out, or whatever it needs. A soft, white kind of a one, I mean.”