oth know what that means,
don't we, 'Thusa dearie?"

"Hum ... ph!" from Miss Eliza.

Arethusa took the blue silk dress off very carefully and handed it back
to Miss Letitia for the finishing touches.

She stood straight and tall before them for just a moment, and tilted
back her head and yawned, stretching her round arms high above her in a
glorious relaxation.

Then she looked down at that exceedingly dark, blue silk dress with
dissatisfaction. Then she looked at Miss Letitia bending her grey head
far over it and putting in innumerable and almost invisible stitches
very carefully, just for Arethusa: her round, cherubic little mouth
puckering into happy smiles about something known only to herself as
she worked.

Arethusa's warm heart smote her.

She swooped down upon Miss Letitia and hugged her with violence to make
up for that moment of inward dissatisfaction with Miss Letitia's loving
work. Miss Letitia's glasses were knocked off in the sudden swoop and
fell into her lap. She looked most surprised at this unexpected
proceeding, though highly gratified, as she retrieved the glasses. Had
she asked Miss Asenath about it, Miss Asenath could probably have told
her just what had been passing through Arethusa's mind. Miss Asenath
had been watching Arethusa. She was never tired of watching her, in
every smallest thing the girl did, with loving eyes that took keen
delight in her youth and life and vivid coloring.

Arethusa gazed around at the many garments in various stages that were
strewn about the room; every single one of them was hers. All the plain
white cotton under-things, one or two of them with puffings or a bit of
"thread" lace whipped around their edges, as a concession to the
unusualness of this occasion; the few simple shirtwaists, trimmed with
neat tucking; the "medium lisle" stockings Miss Eliza was marking in
pairs after a method of her own invention; the plain dark suit that
Miss Letitia had completed only that morning, and which Miss Asenath's
frail fingers were even at this moment engaged in further finishing
with a braid-binding all around the skirt to save the hem; the new hat
which Arethusa had tried on for them with the finished suit to see how
well they went together, and which was lying now on top of the piano;
and the silk dress in Miss Letitia's lap: it was all hers. But there
was nothing frivolous in the array, nothing at all light in color, save
perhaps the underclothes and the shirtwais