The girl’s eyes lighted up with joy.
“Honestly? Oh, that’s wonderful! Let me see them!”
Mary Louise untied the package and held the things up for Elsie to look at. The girl’s expression was one of positive rapture. A silk dress! In the latest style! And the kind of soft wooly coat she had always dreamed of possessing! A hat that was a real hat—not one of those outlandish sunbonnets her aunt Mattie made her wear! Dainty lingerie—and a pair of white shoes!
“Oh, it’s too much!” she cried. “I couldn’t take them! They’re your best things—I know they are.” And once again her eyes filled with tears.
“We have other nice clothes,” Mary Louise assured her. “And our mothers said it was all right. So you must take them: we’d be hurt if you didn’t.”
“Honestly?” The girl looked as if she could not believe there was so much goodness in the world.
“Absolutely! Now—don’t you want to go in and try them on?”
“I’ll do it right here,” said Elsie. “These cedars are so thick that nobody can see me. And if I went into the house they might not let me out again to show you.”
With trembling fingers she pulled off her shoes and stockings, and the old calico dress she was wearing, and put on the silk slip and the green flowered dress. Then the white stockings and the slippers, which fitted beautifully. And last of all, the coat.
Her eyes were sparkling now, and her feet were taking little dancing steps of delight. Elsie Grant looked like a different person!