As Helen untied the strings and unwrapped the tissue paper that was packed around the contents of the big box you could have heard a pin drop in that dining-room at Valhalla. She eagerly pulled aside the papers and then shook out the glimmering gown.
“Oh, Douglas! Douglas! You shouldn’t have done it! It is even prettier than I remembered it to be!”
“Mind out, don’t splash on it,” warned Nan just in time to keep the two great tears that welled up into Helen’s eyes from spotting the exquisite creation.
“My Miss Helen’s gwinter look like a angel whin she goes ter de count’s jamboree,” declared Chloe.
“Well, your Miss Douglas is the angel and she’s going to have to have a new dress with slits in the shoulder-blades to let her wings come through,” sobbed Helen, laughing at the same time as she held the dress up in front of her and danced around the table. She had thought nobody remembered her eighteenth birthday and now found nobody had forgotten it.
“You shouldn’t have afforded it, Douglas. I can’t keep it. It would be too selfish of me.”
“Marked down goods not sent on approval,” drawled Nan.