It was a very long week, but even long weeks have a way of slipping by at last. I played about the house and the garden with the twins, but I never went near the gate, not until the day dawned which was seven times from last Friday, and was Friday again, bright and clear, the very day for the major's home-coming. There were so many flowers in the garden that morning, such especially large ones. They knew, too, that the major was coming home, and had put on their prettiest dresses in his honor.
It was quite a puzzle to me what I should put on. I had a closet full of dresses. There was a beautiful blue silk one, too good for anything but church, which matched a little blue parasol. And there was a lovely white one with a lace flounce, which went with my scolloped petticoat. My third best dress had roses and buttons on it, and the fourth best was covered with brown spots, like cough drops. I loved my little dresses, and it was so hard to tell which dress should come out, and which must stay shut up in the closet, with nobody to admire them.
"Shall it be the cough drop dress, mother?" I asked, uncertainly.
"It's such a wonderful day, and the sun shines so bright, that I think you might put on the white dress with the lace flounce," my mother said, with that smile which meant that she was laughing with me, and not at me.
"And my little black slippers?"
"And your little black slippers."
"And, mother, you remember the time that I was your little flower girl? And you put roses in my hair so it looked like a crown? I'd like to be the major's little flower girl."
My mother lent herself to the pretty idea. She crowned my head with roses. There were roses at my throat, and a big, floating, pink sash swept down my back, and there were roses in my hand for the major, one bunch to give him with a kiss when he came, and another to give him with my love when he went.
Grandmother shook her wise head when she saw that toilet.