"If you can be dressed appropriately and beautifully at the same time I don't see that you have anything to complain of," smiled Helen.
With the short time that the girls had at their command every day it did not seem as if they would be able to do much with the garments that came in to be made over. There were not many of these because the boys had been instructed after the first day to ask that alterations and mending be done at home, but there were a few dresses like Mrs. Lancaster's that were on their hands. Mrs. Smith came to their help when this work bade fair to be too much for them.
"I'll ask Aunt Marion and Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Hancock and Mrs. Watkins to lunch with me some day," she promised Dorothy, "and after luncheon we'll have an old-fashioned bee and rip up these dresses and then we can see what material they give us and we can plan what to do with them."
The scheme worked out to a charm. The elders enjoyed themselves mightily and the resulting pile of materials, smoothly ironed and carefully sorted gave Margaret and Helen a chance to exercise their ingenuity. Mrs. Watkins took back to town with her enough stuff for two, promising to help Della with them, and the suburban girls, with the assistance of the grown-ups, made six charming frocks that looked as good as new.
It was early in October that Helen rushed home from school one day with the news that Mademoiselle was going to sail at the end of the week.
"We must begin to-day to make up a good-bye parcel for her," she cried.
"Red Cross nurses are allowed a very small kit," warned Mrs. Morton.
"We can try to make things so tiny that she won't have to leave them behind her when she goes on duty, but even if she does she can give them to somebody who can make them useful."
"I'll make steamer slippers to begin with," said Ethel Brown.
"How?" asked Ethel Blue.