And Arethusa did.
She stepped slowly down from the little platform where she had been standing for the better view all around, and her grey eyes filled rapidly with the bitter tears of disappointment. It was Tragedy to give it up! But if there was to be no guimpe....
Her fumbling fingers were reaching under the flowers at the girdle for the hooks which had fastened her into it, when Elinor stopped her.
Elinor had set her heart on Arethusa having that Green Dress from the first moment of seeing her in it. It seemed to Elinor to suit the girl as if, as Miss Rosa had enthusiastically declared, somebody had sat down before her and studied her "style". Her namesake nymph might have worn the gown just as it was without a single change to make it more airy or more like captured sea-foam in its fluttering draperies. It belonged with Arethusa's hair and her greenish eyes. She would never find another frock, if they looked all day, which would be half so becoming. But there was no slightest use in buying it if this bugbear of Miss Eliza's disapproval would continue to rear its serpent head to Arethusa's further unhappiness.
"Arethusa," she demanded, "don't you think I know every bit as much about clothes as Miss Eliza?"
Arethusa could but smile through the tears she was winking back at the utter ridiculousness of this question. She looked at Elinor's wonderfully made suit and her furs and the dark purple velvet hat she wore that was so attractive against her white hair, and then memory showed her Miss Eliza, trotting about in the sensible and comfortably cut garments she affected the year round.
"More," she declared, with honesty and emphasis.
"And do you imagine for a single instant that I would be letting you wear anything that was not at all right for you to wear?"
Arethusa shook her head decidedly. That was not exactly the point. "But if I only had...." she began, uncertainly.
"Miss Rosa," asked Elinor desperately, "have you such a thing as a guimpe?"