“I may never want to wear the costume just as it is again,” said Mrs. Lee, “and yet I may, so be careful. Doris may wear it sometime, too.”
“I’ll not be jealous, Mother,” said Doris quickly. She had been sometimes jealous in the past but had wakened to the fact that her parents had no real favorites and that “her turn” came surprisingly often. The difference in age between herself and Betty was lessening, so far as it made so much difference in interests and pursuits and Betty’s attitude was so generous as a rule that Doris would have been ashamed not to respond. The sisters were growing nearer this year.
“I will be just as careful as careful can be. Mother,” Betty made reply, with great enthusiasm, “I think that you are the best mother I ever heard of, even! And speaking of ideas! I never even thought of it, looking with all my eyes at that valentine, too. Now let me skip off and think out the whole costume!”
CHAPTER XIII
HEARTS AND MASKS
Although the colonial costume, which Betty’s mother permitted her to wear to the Valentine party, was new and in order, there was much else in decoration which concerned Betty and indeed the costume itself needed to be taken in a little to fit Betty’s more slender figure. She rushed home, accordingly, on the thirteenth, to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening on her preparations. “I studied like mad, Mother, in study halls; and Carolyn, Kathryn and I cut lunch to get out our Latin together!”
“I am afraid you should not omit lunch, Betty.”
“Oh, that was all right, Mother. We each had a chocolate bar and a cream puff and some peanuts, got ’em on the way to school, that is, I did. It was very obliging of St. Valentine to have his day this year toward the end of the week. Carolyn and Kathryn think that they will be valentines, too. Kathryn may dress as a ‘comic,’ though it depends somewhat on what costume she can get up the easiest. Carolyn has a lot of them that her sister has used at one time or another, and you know what nice ones they would be. O Mother, I think you are so lovely to let me wear this! You see, it isn’t as if it were an ordinary children’s party or just we girls dressing up as usual. I don’t know, indeed, whom Marcella may not have.”
“Well, come here and let me fit you, child. Allow me to remark that there isn’t as much change as might be expected from the difference in our ages.”
“O Mother, you are the youngest and best looking of us all! Ask Father.”
“He might either be prejudiced or hesitate to tell the truth,” laughed Mrs. Lee, and the fitting went on.