Jessica sat up and sipped the bouillon: then lay down and at a fresh command obediently turned her face to the wall. Within five minutes she was asleep; and the next she knew, Madame was saying:
“It is almost ten o’clock. I must leave you. Maid Maria will help you in your toilet. All your things are ready in my room.”
Jessica rose and entered the bedroom, where so few of the Adelphians were ever admitted, and stared in astonishment at Maria, holding up an exquisite frock of sheerest white, lace-trimmed and blue-ribboned in a bewildering fashion that showed the touch of some master modiste.
“Oh! how pretty? Which of the girls’ is that? And what am I to wear? My white muslin, with the two tucks—Oh! dear! I forgot. That was left mussed last time I wore it, at a rehearsal. But——”
“This is your own, Miss Trent. Madame said I was to dress you in it. It was made from the measure of your old frock and looks as if it would just fit. Now, if you please. It’s getting on to time.”
This seemed too good to be true. All her schoolmates had appeared before her, garbed in white, with the colored ribbons of each class adorning them. These blue ones meant that she had been promoted and must be—
“Why, Maria, if I’m to wear this pale blue that must mean I’m now a third-former! Oh, oh, oh!”
“I reckon ’tis, Miss Trent. Promotions always are at the end of the year, which seems funny to be called Commencement when ’tis just the other way. Ah! such soft pretty hair you have. A pity they had to cut it short, at that there hospital!”
“I don’t think it a pity. Hair will grow and it’s lots easier brushed when short. Ah! it does fit, doesn’t it? What a dear, dear Madame! How sweet and thoughtful of her to have it all ready without my having to ask or wait. It is pretty, Maria! I do look nice in it, don’t I? I mean—I’m not vain about it, but I’m so glad to look like the rest.”
“Sure; and Madame Mearsom’s not the one to let anybody look different from their mates. Not she. Even the charity scholars have new things——”