She dived down into her trunk, recklessly pitching out and aside all those garments Miss Eliza had folded so carefully and placed into it as she had considered Arethusa would be needing them. For the one white dress Miss Letitia had made for parties was far down towards the very bottom of the trunk. It is well that Miss Eliza did not see this unpacking!
Still further down, Arethusa lifted up a box she had put there herself, tucking it in when Miss Eliza had not been present to observe, and from it she drew that length of green ribbon which she loved. Unknown to her aunt, it had travelled all the way from the hollow tree to Lewisburg for Arethusa's adorning.
"I will not!" she said aloud, defiantly, as though Miss Eliza were actually present in person forbidding the tying-on of that decoration, "I will not wear a blue ribbon! I will wear This!"
Then Arethusa, thus arrayed in her best, descended the stairs once more.
She crossed the library towards the two by the fire, this time stepping proudly in a consciousness of clothes, holding her head high. Her cheeks were adorably flushed, and her eyes were almost black under her long dark lashes.
The dress was very becoming, even if it were not of the accepted standards for formal evening wear. Miss Letitia had "spre'd herse'f," so Mandy said, on that dress. It was a trifle sheerer than Miss Eliza had at first intended it to be, thanks to Miss Asenath's gentle persuasion; round in the neck and even a bit low, for with fingers that trembled in their excited daring Miss Letitia had cut it down farther than the line Miss Eliza had indicated as modest and becoming. And then there was no way to fill it in.
But "'Thusa had such a pretty neck," said the guilty seamstress to herself; and what did an inch or so matter in the end?
In Arethusa's simple soul, even with her "love of gew-gaws," as Miss Eliza phrased it, there was no smallest room for envy. This white garment of hers had been bought and made for a party dress, and it was the most party "party dress" she had ever possessed; her mother's black gown was plainly a party dress also: therefore, to Arethusa's mind, they were similarly arrayed for an Occasion. She could admire whole-heartedly the soft sweep of the folds of Elinor's gown without one iota of unhappiness because her own frock hung in straight thick gathers with but a ruffle edged with lace at the bottom of the skirt for its trimming.
"I put on my Best Dress," she said happily, "because it was your Anniversary. I know Aunt 'Liza would say I should have put on my blue silk, but it's so dark, and it's not dress-up a bit."
Elinor and Ross exchanged glances, but forebore to smile at the "best dress." Somehow she appealed to them both more at this very moment than she had in any mood shown before.