She ascended the stairs as if she carried a burden on her back. Mandy was on her knees before the hamper, untying the rosy packages.
"Is you goin' to try 'em on, honey?" she asked.
Becky stood in the doorway, the lace wrap hanging from her shoulders and showing the delicate blue of the negligee beneath—her face was like chalk but her eyes shone. "Yes," she said, "there's a pink gingham I want to wear to the barbecue to-morrow. There ought to be a hat to match. Did the hats come, Mandy?"
"Calvin he say there's another box, but he ain' brought it up from the deepot. He was ridin' dat Jo-mule, and this yer basket was all he could ca'y."
In the pink frock Becky looked like a lovely child.
"Huc-cum you-all gettin' eve'y thing pink, Miss Becky?" Mandy asked.
"For a change," said Becky.
And how could she tell old Mandy that she had
felt that in a rose-colored world everything should be rose-color?
She tried on each frock deliberately. She tried on every pair of slippers. She tried on the wraps, and the hats which came up finally with Calvin staggering beneath the bulkiness of the box. She was lovely in everything. And she was no longer the little Becky Bannister whom Dalton had wooed. She was Mademoiselle Midas, appraising her beauty in her lovely clothes, and wondering what Dalton would think if he could see her.