een that the table was in perfect order, and that the dinner was
cooking as well as dinner could in the oven, Mrs. Hopkins went upstairs
to put on a lace collar and a neat black silk apron.

Meanwhile Susy had locked herself into her own room. The crowning moment
of her life had arrived. She had made up her mind that she would wear
her new blouse at dinner that day. Susy's stockings were coarse, and
showed darns here and there; Susy's shoes were rough, and could not
altogether hide the disfiguring patches on the toes of each; Susy's
skirt was dark-blue serge, fairly neat in its way. Altogether Susy from
her waist down was a very ordinary little girl--the little daughter of
poor people; but from her waist up she was resplendent.

"Oh! if I could only show my sweet, sweet little badge," she thought,
"it would make me perfect. But I daren't. The queen commands that it
should be hidden, and the queen's commands must be obeyed."

Susy slipped into her blouse. She fastened it; she put a belt round her
waist. She curtsied before her little glass. She bobbed here; she
bobbed there. She looked at herself front view, then over her shoulder,
then, with a morsel of glass, at her back; she surveyed herself, as far
as the limited accommodation of her room afforded, from every point of
view. Finally, with flushed cheeks and a very proud expression on her
face, she tripped downstairs. The pale-blue cashmere blouse, with its
real lace and embroidered trimmings, might have been worn by any girl,
even in the highest station of life.

Mrs. Hopkins was busy in the kitchen. She called to Susy:

"Come and hold the vegetable dish, child. I hear Tom pushing Aunt Church
in at the gate; I know he is doing it by the creak of the bath-chair.
There never was a bath-chair that creaked like that. Hold this while
I--Why, sakes alive, Susy! wherever did you get--"

"Oh, it's my new blouse, mother."

"Your new what?"

"What you see, mother--my new blouse. Don't you admire it?"

Mrs. Hopkins was so stunned that she could not speak for a moment. Her
face, which had been quite florid, turned pale. She suddenly put up her
hand and caught Susy by the arm.

"Oh, mother, don't!" said the little girl. "Your hand isn't clean. Oh,
you have made a stain! Oh, mother, how could you?"

"Run upstairs at once, child, and take it off. For the life of you don't
let _her_ see it; she'd never forgive me. It isn't fit for you, Susy; it
really isn't. Wherever did