“Would you really be willing to have me cut it up?” asked Migwan rapturously clasping her hands.  That afternoon her head really was so full of party plans that she forgot to get her lessons.  The dress was laid out on the dining room table and examined as to its possibilities.  “I don’t know but what it would be best to dye it some pretty shade of green or blue,” said Mrs. Gardiner, after thinking the matter over.  “It is too yellow to use as it is, and there is no time to bleach it properly.”  So it was ripped up and dyed Nile green, a shade which was particularly becoming to Migwan.  There was enough goods in the train to make the entire dress, so there was no need to do any piecing.

Instead of avoiding the subject of the party, Migwan now joined happily in the discussions, and asked questions right and left about the best style in which to make her dress.  She said nothing about the former function of that particular piece of goods.  “Extravagant Migwan!” said Sahwah, “getting a satin dress for the party.  My mother made me get silk poplin,” Gladys’s dress had arrived from New York, but she would not breathe a word in regard to it and the girls were wild with curiosity.  Only Hinpoha was allowed to behold its glories, as a consolation for not being able to come to the party.  Of course Hinpoha had been sworn to secrecy regarding it, but that did not keep her from rhapsodizing about it on general principles and pitching the girls’ curiosity still higher.

Now there was one girl who had been invited to the party who said very little about it.  This was Emily Meeks, who sat beside Gladys in the session room.  Emily had also entered the class this fall, but, unlike Gladys, her path had not been marked by triumphs.  She was timid and retiring, and after being three months in the class was little better known than she had been at first.  The truth was that Emily was an orphan, working her way through High School by taking care of the children of one of the professors after school hours, and had neither money nor time to spend in the company of her classmates.  Gladys was sorry for her because she always looked so sad and lonely, and, thinking to give her one good time at least to treasure up in the memory of her school days, invited her to the party.  Emily accepted the invitation gratefully.

The night of the party came at last.  Migwan’s dress was finished and when she was finally arrayed in it she could compare favorably with the wealthiest girl in the crowd.  She even wore her mother’s high-heeled white satin wedding slippers with the little gold buckles, which fitted her perfectly.  She skipped away happily with a good-bye kiss to her mother, who was tired out with her labors.

Gladys had relented at the last minute, and promised the Winnebagos that if they would come a half hour early they might help her dress.  That was because the Winnebagos were closer kin to her than the rest of the girls, and it would be a shame to have any one else see the dress first.  So they all gathered in Gladys’s room, where the dress lay on the bed.  It was of light blue chiffon, exquisitely hand embroidered in dainty-colored butterflies.  “Oh-h,” they gasped, not daring to touch it.