"It's the one and only possible thing I have that will do for one of Len's 'little dinners,'" she was saying to herself. "I know just how she'll be looking, and I must live up to her. I wonder if I can mend it to be fit—I wonder."
She carried it downstairs. Madam Chase, sitting by the window with her knitting, looked up.
"Mending lace, dearie?" she asked. "Can't I do it for you?"
"I'm afraid it's beyond even you, Granny," she said, ruefully. To the deaf ears her gesture told more than her words.
"Let me see," commanded the old lady. When the gauzy gown was spread before her she examined it carefully.
"If it need not be washed—" she began.
"It must be. Look at the bottom." Charlotte's expressive hands demonstrated as she talked. "I've danced in it and sat out dances in all sorts of places in it. But I can wash it, if you can mend it. I'll wash it with the tips of my fingers."
"I will try," said her grandmother.
That afternoon Charlotte carefully laundered the mended gown, dried it in the sun and ironed it, partly with her fingers, partly with a tiny iron. Finished, it was a work of art, a frock of rare lace of exquisite design, several times made over, and now, in its last stage, prettier than in its first.
"If it will hold together," Charlotte said laughing, as she put it on, and, kneeling before Granny, waited while the delicate old fingers slowly fastened each eyelet. When she rose she was a figure at which the old lady who loved her looked with pleased eyes.