the street, dashing up the front steps behind a tall figure just
putting a key in the Willis front door.

"Well, honey, why this haste?" demanded the doctor, stepping back to
let her go in first. "You didn't smell Winnie's apple pudding a
block away, did you?"

"Where have you been, Rosemary?" asked Aunt Trudy, coming into the
hall. "Sarah said you said you would be home by half-past four."

"What you got?" inquired Sarah, eyeing the parcel under Rosemary's
arm with frank curiosity.

"Let me open it, Rosemary?" begged Shirley, standing on tip-toe to
pinch the package, her usual method of guessing the contents.

"There isn't a speck of privacy in the house!" flared Rosemary. "I
think I might buy something once in a while that the whole family
didn't have to see. And no one has to come straight home from
school, except me. If I'm an hour late, Aunt Trudy always wants to
know where I've been."

"I told her you went shopping with Nina Edmonds," remarked Sarah
sweetly, "And you're always cross when you go anywhere with her."

"Sarah!" said Doctor Hugh, warningly, but Rosemary dashed past them
and up the stairs to her own room.

She thrust the package down deep in her cedar chest and there it
stayed till the next Saturday afternoon. Then Rosemary deliberately
locked her door and proceeded to array herself in gray silk
stockings and patent leather pumps with narrow, high heels, the
results of Nina Edmonds' persuasive arguments and Rosemary's deep
longing to possess these accessories.

Walking in the pumps proved to be unexpectedly difficult, but
Rosemary practised while she dressed and by the time she had put on
her best hat and coat and was ready to go down stairs she was able
to manage them better. Sarah and Shirley had gone to the library,
Winnie was busy in the kitchen and Aunt Trudy was sewing in her
room. Rosemary counted on leaving the house unobserved. She teetered
to the door of her aunt's room and carefully keeping out of her
range of vision announced that she was going up town for a little
walk.

"All right, dearie, have a nice time," answered Aunt Trudy, rocking
placidly. "Tell Winnie to answer the telephone if it rings, because
I don't want to have to go down stairs."

Rosemary experimented cautiously with the top step and then
discretion prompted her to abandon valor. In her best coat and hat
and gorgeously arrayed as to her pretty feet, she, who considered
herself quite grown up this afternoon, qu