She'd be almost
pretty if she was nicely dressed. I've got this white one for little
Ruth Craven, and I want Alice to have this so badly. Can't you manage
it, dear Mrs. Tennant?"
Mrs. Tennant felt tempted. The blouse was very dainty and pretty, and
unlike anything she could afford to buy for her only daughter. Kathleen
threw her arms round her neck and kissed her.
"You will--you will, dear Mrs. Tennant," she said. "It is yours
entirely. You tell her you got it at a cheap sale. Say you went to a
jumble sale and bought it; you paid one-and-twopence-halfpenny for it.
That's the right figure, isn't it, for the best things at a jumble sale?
Tell her it's _quite_ new, and was thrown in promiscuous like."
"But, my darling child, I can't tell her what isn't true. She would wear
it if she didn't know it came from you. She would not only wear it, but
she would delight in it; but nothing would induce her to take it if she
thought you had given it."
"Then don't let's tell her. Besides, it wouldn't be true, for I have
given it to you, dear. And now, see, here is something for your sweet
self. I wrote to Aunt Katie, and Aunt Katie is so clever. See! come to
the glass."
Kathleen had opened a cardboard box, and out of it she took a black
velvet bonnet with nodding plumes and a little pink strip of velvet
fastened under the brim. This she put with trembling fingers on Mrs.
Tennant's head. Mrs. Tennant was in reality not at all old, and she
looked quite young and pretty in the new toque.
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