"Oh, I know! like Ellen in the 'Wide, Wide World,'" broke in Cricket. "Don't you remember her horrid aunt, who dyed all her white stockings gray, and she felt so badly? I never knew why. Wouldn't I feel silly in white stockings now!"
"Yes, but if everybody wore them, it would be different. There was one girl, Phœbe Dawson, in my class, who was a very untidy girl. She always had hooks off her dress, or a hook and eye put together that did not mate, or her dress was broken from its gathers. Her stockings were always grimy around the ankles. Ours were always smoothly gartered up, but hers wrinkled down over her shoes."
"Yes," nodded Cricket, "Sort of mousquetaire stockings."
Grandma laughed. "That exactly describes it. I know now there was some excuse for her getting her stockings so dirty, for she had a much longer walk to school than any of us did, as she came from Charlestown,—over a long, dusty road.
"So, one day, as I was saying, the recitation was just over, and Miss Abbie was talking about something just to fill up the time till the class bell should ring. Phœbe Dawson sat just opposite me in the half circle. I can see her now. The part in her hair was as uneven as possible—what we used to call a 'rail-fence' parting, and her braids straggled unevenly down behind her ears. She had forgotten the brooch that should have fastened her collar. The facing of her dress was ripped and was hanging down, and her pantalets were actually dirty."
"Pantalets, grandma?"
"Yes, we all wore pantalets, beautifully starched and ironed, that came nearly to the tops of our village-ties, as we called them. We had very fancy ones for Sundays, and plainer ones for every day, but we were very particular about them. Phœbe sat with her feet crossed and actually sticking out in front of her—which was considered very bad manners—and her stockings were very grimy.
"I forgot about the rule of no whispering, and I said, suddenly, to Dolly Chipman, who sat on the other side of me, 'Pearl-gray stockings are the latest thing from Paris. You can always depend on Phœbe Dawson to set the style—pig-sty-le.'
"Instantly Miss Abbie's cold, gray eyes were on me.
"'Did you speak, Miss Winthrop?' for we were all called, very formally, by our last names.