ther.

"I don't see why not," I answered bluntly.

"Taking food and clothes would be charity, and I couldn't do that. I
couldn't even let Miss Prissy give Lovelace Peyton any aprons, only I
did take some scraps of her pink gingham dress to piece him
with--that's why he looks like such a rainbow with his pink on blue.
Please don't be mad with me, Phyllis. I don't mind at all doing
without grand things to eat, but I can't--can't do without your--your
love," and Roxanne hid her head on my shoulder, much to my surprise.

"You'd better have my cookies and roast chicken," I muttered as I
shook her back into her own place again.

"The taste of love lasts longer than any kind of cake," answered
Roxanne with a comforted laugh. "And truly, Phyllis, it has been a
comfort to tell you all about it. It is hard to have to skimp like I
do and it makes a girl nervous to have to keep looking down at her
feet to be sure that a toe isn't poking out of the shoe since the last
time she looked, also to know that the last inch of hem is let out of
her dress and her legs are growing while she sleeps. I can take
Douglass's old shirts and make shirt waists for me and aprons of the
scraps for Lovey, and lots of things for Lovey out of his old
trousers, only he says that he has to wear them himself until he feels
ashamed of his appearance whenever he meets anybody; but my own skirts
are what seem the last straw, or rather the bricks that I haven't any
straw to make. The last one was made out of some dead Somebody Byrd's
black cashmere shawl, I don't know whose, but I can't see the next
even in the dim future."

"I heard Belle Kirby say that your white linen is the most stylish
dress in Byrdville, and I agreed with her," I said, with the emphasis
that truth always makes possible. "In fact, you always look different
from other people, Roxanne--like--like the town was named for you--as
it is."

"Oh, that linen dress is really a wonder, considering," laughed
Roxanne with pleased delight. "It is made out of a linen sheet that
came off one of my great-grandmother's looms, and I found it in an old
trunk. Miss Prissy embroidered it and helped me make it and a suit for
Lovey and a shirt for Douglass out of the other one of the pair. Uncle
Pompey helps me wash and iron all three of them every Saturday. He has
a necktie off of them, too, and Sunday we all go to church 'of a
piece', he calls it. Douglass says, when the Emperor of Germany
invites the gr