"Thank you," she said, "I'll wear my old ones. I prefer the cold."
Mrs. Pike coloured with annoyance and set her lips firmly. "How dare you defy me in that way, Elizabeth!" she cried. "I have told you to wear those stockings, and you are to wear them. Remember, I mean what I say. I wonder your father has not insisted long before this on your wearing flannel next your skin. Don't you know that by going about in flimsy cotton things in all weathers you are laying up for yourself a rheumatic old age, and all kinds of serious illness?"
Kitty shuddered, but not at the prospect drawn for her by her aunt. "Father knows that we can't," she said seriously, "so he never tried to make us."
Betty, who had been absorbed in thought, looked up eagerly. "I would much rather have rheumatism than itchy stockings," she protested quite gravely. "I don't mind a bit, Aunt Pike. And—well, you see we can't be sure that we shall have an old age, or rheumatics."
Mrs. Pike grew really angry. "Put on those stockings at once, miss, and fasten them to your suspenders.—Kitty, fasten yours too."
"Oh, please let me wait," cried Kitty, "before I pull them tight; it is so awful."
"Nonsense! It is more than half of it fancy. Remember you are to wear them until the warm weather comes," and with that Aunt Pike walked away triumphant.
"Oh, how hideous they are!" groaned Kitty, as she looked disgustedly at her striped legs; "how perfectly hideous! I shall be ashamed to go out in them. What will Dan say when he sees them?"
"It is worse for me," wailed Betty, "my dress is so short. O Kitty, how can we ever walk in these dreadful things?"
"I don't know," said Kitty bitterly, "but we've got to. It is a good thing we have something nice to do to-day, for it may help us to forget." But nothing made them do that; the discomfort went with them everywhere, and destroyed their pleasure in everything.