"Oh, yes," murmured Dorothy, clasping her little hands. "I—I remember so well how nice it looked on me, too."
"You looked like an angel in it!" declared Katy; resuming: "Well, it's that one, miss, and I have been embroidering flowers all over the front of it as a surprise for you, and, oh, they look perfectly magnificent on it!—just as though some one stood near you and threw a great handful of blossoms over you and they clung to your white tulle dress just where they fell."
"What kind of flowers are they?" asked Dorothy, delightedly.
"Wisteria blossoms," said Katy.
Dorothy sprang to her feet, pale as death.
"You have embroidered purple wisteria blossoms all over my ball dress?" she whispered, in an awful voice.
"Yes," returned the girl, wondering what was coming next.
"Oh, Katy!" she cried, in a choking voice, "don't you know that purple wisteria blossoms mean tears?"
"I don't believe in all those old women's superstitions, miss," declared Katy, stoutly. "I imagine that it was got up by some muddy-complexioned creature, whose only annoyance was that the pretty blossoms didn't look good on her, and consequently she gave them a bad name to keep others from wearing them. There's plenty of such things being done."
This explanation, or rather explosion of the pet superstition, amused Dorothy vastly.