Mrs. Blaine, overjoyed at this fulfillment of her fondest hopes, at once said she would make the graduation dress.  Fanny and Virginia, knowing well the labor it would involve, demurred.  It was too much of an undertaking.  Their mother was far from strong; the sewing would tire her eyes.  Besides, they could not spare the time from the store.  It would be cheaper and quicker to buy the dress ready made.  Even Dr. Everett, when consulted, shook his head and tried to discourage the widow from a task which he was afraid might prove beyond her strength.  But Mrs. Blaine was not to be put off so easily.  Since their father’s death, she had let the girls have much their own way, but this time she was determined.  It would be a labor of love, she insisted.  Daddie, himself, would have wished it.  And so, without further ado, work on the beloved graduation dress was commenced.

And such work as it entailed!  Running down town each instant, to buy satin and ribbon and laces and lining, unable to find what was wanted, or else purchasing something that did not suit and having to take it back and exchange it for something else.  The girls literally wore their shoes to pieces, but they did not mind.  They knew that making this graduation dress was the one great joy that had come into their mother’s life since their father’s death, and they were amply rewarded when, after a long and arduous shopping tour they returned home with the required article and handed it to her as she bent low over her work at the board she would look up with a smile and exclaim: 

“Oh, isn’t it beautiful?  That’s just what I wanted!  Now I can get on with Virginia’s dress.”

Thus, between working and studying, the days passed pleasantly enough.  The little shop prospered, and all three were happy, each in her own way, Fanny in looking after the customers, Virginia in doing her lessons, Mrs. Blaine in working on her beloved graduation dress.

It was about this time that a romance came into Fanny’s heretofore prosaic existence.  So far the poor girl had not enjoyed much of life.  Her time spent between four walls, there was a very narrow horizon to her outlook on things.  She rarely went out, took no part in the pleasures and gaieties of other young women of her age.  When not waiting on customers, she was cooking.  Yet she was always good-natured about it.  Laughingly she called herself Cinderella, because, while her more favored sister might be dressing up to go to recitals, lectures or concerts, she would be in the kitchen washing up the dishes.  She took it amiably, yet there were times when she had a quiet cry all to herself, when she thought that her mother, instead of being so much engrossed in making a fine graduation dress for sister, might remember that she, too, needed something pretty to wear.