“It’s awfully pretty, Nancy. Lovely color, but——”
“You see, the skirt’s quite broad,” interrupted Nancy, anticipating objections and endeavoring to spread the skirt to the full limit of its yard and a quarter.
“Just about as broad as one trouser leg,” teased Ben.
Nancy ignored the remark, and the pheasant’s feather in her hat seemed to quiver with indignation.
“Where’s the crook?” asked Mary politely.
“I’m her crook,” put in Percy. “You’ll find she’ll be using me as a staff presently when she has to take a step six inches instead of five.”
“We’ll be carrying her yet,” Ben predicted.
“I think you are all perfectly horrid,” ejaculated Nancy, who indeed looked as pretty as a picture in the blue velveteen. There was the coral tie at her throat, as she had planned, and perched on her curls was the jauntiest little hat imaginable that served only to keep the sun off the top of her head and was no protection whatever to her tip-tilted freckled nose. Mary and Elinor wore jimmies bought in the village, and Billie wore no hat at all.
“No, we aren’t, Nancy dear. We’re just teasing,” said Billie. “You look sweet, but why have you never worn it before?”
“To tell the truth, I was afraid of the scorn of Mr. Lupo,” said Nancy. “All of you are just like a family, so it didn’t matter, but Mr. Lupo might have thought me, well—an amateur. I’ve been dying to wear it,” she added, giving a dance step and looking down with pride at the snug-fitting skirt. “Of course, I know the skirt is a bit narrow. You know how Mrs. Moxley is,—just determined to have her own way. It was all I could do to get her to put the extra quarter of a yard in the skirt. But I think I can manage it if we don’t walk too fast. There is so much level ground on this walk, too,—all that table land, you know.”