“Try it on quick, Chicken Little.”
Chicken Little’s shining eyes and clear, fair skin fitted like a charm under the pale blue.
Dick was jubilant. “I saw that hat in a shop window and I thought it looked exactly like Chicken Little. Who says a man can’t pick out a hat?”
He departed without waiting for any disparaging remarks.
Alice’s present came next, a charming muslin with sash and hair ribbons the exact shade of the blue hat facing.
“If it only fits, Jane. I left some to let out in the hem, but you are bigger every way than I thought. I tried it on Katie.”
“Changing it a little at the waist will make it perfect,” Marian reassured her.
“Oh, I am so glad it is snug, and just the right length, Alice. Mother–” Chicken Little stopped suddenly, she couldn’t be criticising mother before company. “You see I grow so dreadfully fast that Mother has to make everything too big so it’ll last a while.”
Marian supplemented this explanation later to Alice.
“Poor child, Mother Morton does make her clothes too big! And it doesn’t do a bit of good 97for they hang on her the whole season and by the next they’re either worn or faded–and she generally manages to out-grow them, in spite of their bigness.”