"You're a good girl, Birdie, and you deserve the best. To-night you wear your blue. Tillie, come in and set the chairs straight—nice—Miss Birdie's going to have company. How that Mrs. Ginsburg got on my nerves, I can't tell you, with her Meena and her brag!"
"I should say so!"
At eight o'clock Birdie again posed before her mirror. Her robin's-egg-blue dress where it fell away from her rather splendid and carefully powdered chest was spangled with small sequins, which glinted like stars. There was a corresponding galaxy of spangles arranged bandeau-fashion in her hair. The Blessed Damozel, when she leaned out from the golden bar of Heaven, wore seven significant stars in her hair. Birdie also wore stars in her hair, in her eyes, and in her heart and on her bosom.
"I think this dress makes me look grand and thin, mamma."
"It cost enough."
"Do you like those silver spangles in my hair? That's the way Bella Block wore hers at the theater the other night."
"I don't believe in such fussiness for girls! Your mother before you didn't have it. If you want you can wear my diamond bow-knot. Have Tillie come in and pin it on you with the safety-catch. I'm so nervous like a cat!"
"What are you so nervous about, mamma?"
"Say, Birdie, you know I'm the last one to talk about such things—but the Gumps don't start things without intentions. Flora told me herself that Ben Gump got engaged to her sister the second time he called."