“If you can sew you’ll know how to mend them, and you will learn to be careful. Now try on these shoes.”
A pair of dainty strap-slippers were chosen, with stockings to match, and soon Betsy was surveying herself in the mirror.
“Have I got to wear ’em always?”
“Most people do, here.”
“Hm! They’ll feel funny. But I’ll get used to ’em. Folks said you would likely ‘doll me up’ some. But I didn’t think there was such pretty things in all the world. I’m afraid—I’m afraid, Aunt Kate, that I won’t mourn so hard as I ought to, with this lace on my petticoat.”
“You must think of how your mother would have liked to see you in these pretty things. She used to wear dainty, lace-trimmed clothes herself, when she was little. And, dearie, she would not want you to mourn. She’s so much happier now. Just enjoy the things, and learn to make your soul and body pretty, like the clothes.”
“Mrs. Webb said I’d prob’ly get vain when you took me in hand,—but I guess I can resk one small ‘vain.’ I can wear my black hair-ribbin, so my head’ll mourn, anyway, and my feet’ll mourn, too, in these black slippers.”
With this compromise they sat down, as soon as Mrs. Allston had arrived, and Betsy’s nimble little fingers ran with the best. Basting, back-stitching and “over-and-overing” she could do, and she soon learned the mysteries of hemming and felling. So eager was she that her fingers almost learned of themselves.
In the afternoon a tired but excited Betsy beheld her first white frock, ready to wear.
“That will do for a start,” said Aunt Kate. “Now, before you put it on, let us make sure that everything else is all right. Will you let me do your hair for you?”