"I guess not!" said Clarice. "Play in my new dresses, and get them all tumbled? Sue Penrose, you are too childish. I never saw anything like the way you keep wanting to play all the time. I should think you were ten, instead of thirteen."
Much abashed, Sue begged again for forgiveness. She did not see so very much fun in just putting on somebody else's dress and then taking it off again, but she submitted meekly when Clarice slipped it over her head. But the same difficulty arose again: the dress would not come anywhere near meeting round Sue's free, natural figure.
"Here," said Clarice; "wait a minute, Sue. I've got another pair of stays. We'll fix it in a moment."
Sue protested, but was overruled. Clarice was determined, she said, to see how her little friend would look if she were properly dressed for once. In a few moments she was fastened into the blue muslin, and Clarice was telling her that she looked too perfectly sweet for anything.
"Now that is the way for you to dress, Sue Penrose. If I were you I should insist upon my mother's getting me a pair of stays to-morrow. Why, you look like a different girl. Why, you have an alegant figure—perfectly alegant!"
But poor Sue was in sore discomfort, and no amount of "alegance" could make her at ease. She could hardly breathe; she felt girded by a ring of iron. Oh, it was impossible; it was unbearable!
"I never, never could, Clarice!" she protested. "Unhook it for me; please do! Yes, it is very pretty, but I cannot wear it another moment."
She persisted, in spite of Clarice's laughing and calling her a little countrified goose, and was thankful to find herself free once more, and back in her own good belted frock.
"Oh, Clarice," she said, "if you only knew how comfortable this was, you would have your dresses made so; I know you would."
"The idea!" said Clarice. "I guess not, Sue. Have some more candy? My, how my head aches!"