"Yes," said I.
"You'll not be wanting such bright things now, child; you'll best wear grays, and white, and black."
"Indeed, then, I sha'n't," I said. "If I'm no longer lovely myself, I'll be decked out in braw clothes, that I may please the eye one way or another."
"No use, child," sighed my mother 'twixt her teeth, and not meaning for me to hear.
"So would I, Ailie," said Mary Strathsay, quickly. "There's much in fine fibres and soft shades that gives one the womanly idea. You're the best shape among us all, my light lissomeness, and your gowns shall fit it rarely. Nay, Margray, let Alice have the pink."
"Be still, Mary Strathsay!" said my mother. "Alice will wear white this summer; 'tis most suitable. She has white slips and to spare."
"But in the winter?" urged the other. "'Twill be sad for the child, and we all so bright. There's my pearl silk,—I'm fairly tired of it,—and with a cherry waist-piece"——
"You lose breath," said my mother, coldly and half vexed.
So Mary Strathsay bit her lip and kept the peace.
"Whisht now, child, your turn will come," said Margray, unfolding a little bodice of purple velvet, with its droop of snowy Mechlin. "One must cut the coat according to the cloth. That's for Effie,—gayly my heart's beat under you," laying it down and patting it on one side, lovingly. "There, if white's the order of the day, white let it be,—and let Mrs. Strathsay say her most, she cannot make other color of this, and she shall not say me nay. That's for Alice." And she flung all the silvery silk and blonde lace about me.