Lettie stood as if stunned; she remembered, suddenly, what the doctor had said, that her mother’s health was precarious, that she must not be agitated; and a feeling of dismay rushed over her; but a thought of what her mother had refused her returned, and she hardened herself again.
“I don’t believe what the old doctor said, anyway,” she muttered; “and I’ll have a good time for once! Oh! won’t I!” as the thought of what she would do came over her.
“In the first place,” she thought, “of course I’ll go on Stella’s moonlight excursion to-night; mother’s objections are nonsense. I know Stella’s friends are a little wild; but they’re awfully jolly all the same, and I know we’ll have lots of fun—and I do love a sail on the river. I’ll wear my new white dress, too,” she went on, as the thought of her perfect freedom grew upon her; “I don’t believe I’ll hurt it, and if it is soiled a little it can be done up before Aunt Joe’s party that mother’s so wonderfully particular about.”
It was now time to start for school, but she at once decided not to go. “I’ll have a good time for once,” she said, “and get rid of that horrid grammar lesson. Now I’ll go over to Stella’s and tell her I’m going;” and she went to her room to get ready.
“I won’t wear this old dress,” she said scornfully; “for once I’ll dress as I please; mother’s so notional about street dress!”
In her own room she threw off the scorned dark school dress and brought from her clothes-press a new light blue silk, just made for her to wear on very special occasions. “I’ll wear this,” she said; “I shan’t hurt it; and I want Stella to see that other folks can have nice dresses as well as she.”
Hurriedly she put on the pretty dress and the ribbons that went with it. Then, taking off her sensible street shoes, she put on the delicate ones that belonged to the dress.
Looking at herself in the glass, another thought occurred to her: “I’ll wear my gold beads, too; mother never lets me wear them in the street, but other folks wear them, and I don’t see any use of having things if you can’t wear them.”
From a jewel case in her drawer she took a beautiful string of large gold beads. They had belonged to her grandmother, and had been given to her because she was named after her, Letitia, though she had softened it into Lettie, “and little enough, too,” she had said, “to pay for having such an old-fashioned name, when Mildred, or Ethel, or Eva, or Maude would have been so much prettier.”
The beads she clasped around her throat, then she pinned on the little gold chatelaine watch her mother had given her at Christmas, and—resolving for once to wear as much jewelry as she liked—she slipped on to her finger a ring bequeathed to her by her Aunt Letitia. It was of diamonds; five beautiful stones in a row, worth a great deal of money, and far too fine for a schoolgirl to wear, her mother said. Much as she longed to wear it and show it to the girls, she had never been allowed to do so. “Now,” she exultingly thought, “now I’ll have the good of it for once!”