I've wanted a white dress with lace on it and a blue sash. Gladys
Evans has one. She wore it at the church social. I spoke a piece and
I had to wear these ugly clothes. It hurt my pride awful but daddy
said that was because I didn't look at it right, that if I had the
right kind of an eye I'd see washing in a white dress instead of
beauty. But I guess it's hard to see right when you haven't ever had
anything but boys' clothes. Oh, Aunt Kate!" she put her arms around
her aunt. "I do think that it is good of you to want me to live with
you. You're the only relation I have out of Heaven. I don't quite
understand about that, when Gladys Evans has four sisters and a brother
and three aunts and two uncles and a pair of grandfathers and even one
grandmother. It doesn't seem just fair, does it? But I think you're
nicer than all of hers put together. One of her aunts is cross-eyed
and another lives in California and one of her uncles is stingy," she
whispered. "You--you're beautiful!" And she hugged her again.

Mrs. Donovan dropped weakly into a chair and her arms went around Mary
Rose. She had never realized how empty they had been until they
enclosed Mary Rose.

"You didn't say anything about bringing my friends with me," went on
Mary Rose happily, "but of course I couldn't leave Jenny Lind and
George Washington behind. George Washington has the same name as your
house," she gurgled. "Wouldn't you like to see him?" She slipped from
her aunt's arms to the chair where she had put her basket. There had
been sundry angry upheavals of the cover but it was tightly tied with a
stout string. Mrs. Donovan had scarcely noticed it. She had been too
bewildered to see anything but Mary Rose.

Mary Rose untied the basket cover but before she could raise it a big
maltese cat had pushed it aside and jumped to the floor and stood
stretching himself in front of Mrs. Donovan's horrified eyes.

"Mary Rose!" she cried. It was all she could say.

"Isn't he a beauty?" Mary Rose turned shining eyes to her as she
patted her pet. "I've had him ever since he was a weeny kitten. Mrs.
Campbell gave him to me when I had the tonsilitis. We adore each
other. You see his mother is dead and so is mine. We're both orphans."

And she caught the orphaned George Washington to her and hugged him.
"I've a dog, too, but I left him in Mifflin."

"Thank God for that," murmured Mrs. Donovan under her breath.

"His name is Solomon," w