"I am sorry for that, Katie. What is the matter?"
The girl was silent a moment, and then, in a low tone, she said, "Mother, can I have a velvet suit made for school?"
The answer was prompt and decisive: "Certainly not, my dear. The suit you have on is perfectly appropriate. I should not think of wearing velvet myself, except as an evening or visiting costume. It would be absurd in a school-room."
"Clara May has a velvet suit; so have Jenny and Julia Smith; and Cecile Bradley's is very nearly all velvet. I think that papa can afford it just as well."
"It is not a question of money, but of good taste and propriety. If you wear velvet as a school-girl, what do you propose to wear when you are a young lady? I am sorry you have missed your French in order to make a request so silly. Now, dear, had you not better hurry a little? Madame disapproves of late pupils."
Katie took up her books, and went off with a frown on her pretty face. All the way to Madame's she was considering how to accomplish her wish. Her grandfather would give her the dress, or her aunt Lucy; but even then her mother would not permit her to wear it to school, and if she could not wear it in the presence of Clara May and the Smith girls, there would be no consolation for her in velvet.
When she reached school her class had finished its recitation; she had lost her place, and Madame was cross. Katie to-day was careless of these things. Her mind was occupied with one ambition, a very foolish one, doubtless, but a very important one in her own eyes.
Never before, either, had Clara May looked so triumphantly happy and handsome. She had taken Katie's place at the head of the class, and the bright winter sun fell upon the girl's fair hair, turning it to gold, and made dark lustres in the folds of the envied black velvet. The Smiths were awkward, angular girls, and she scarcely envied them costumes which were not in the least becoming. As for Cecile Bradley's suit, it was home-made. Katie's critical eyes had detected that fatal fault at once. It was Clara May who sat in Katie's sunshine; for handsome and stylish as Clara was, Katie was certain if she only had a velvet suit she would far eclipse her.
Now it is a fact that among girls to be the belle of the school-room is quite as envied a position as it is to young ladies to be the belle of the ball-room. Hitherto Katie Dawson had been the recognized belle of Madame Blanc's fashionable classes. She had been an authority on the subject of braids and curls, and on all matters pertaining to rose-bud toilets. But Clara May—quite a new-comer—was heading an "opposition." She had declared she would not wear braids because Katie Dawson did, that frizzes suited her better; and frizzes, though still in the minority, held their own against remarks of the most cutting kind.
There is no contest some girls so thoroughly enter into as that of outdressing rivals. The black velvet suit was Clara's last defiance, and Katie was at a loss how to take it up.