ry of rapture and clasped her hands.

"Go? Of course I will. I 've been dying to go all day, tried to get
tickets this morning and could n't, been fuming about it ever since, and
now oh, how splendid!" And Polly could not restrain an ecstatic skip,
for this burst of joy rather upset her.

"Well, you come to tea, and we 'll dress together, and go all
comfortable with Tom, who is in a heavenly frame of mind to-day."

"I must run home and get my things," said Polly, resolving on the spot
to buy the nicest pair of gloves the city afforded.

"You shall have my white cloak and any other little rigging you want.
Tommy likes to have his ladies a credit to him, you know," said Fanny,
departing to take a beauty sleep.

Polly instantly decided that she would n't borrow Becky's best bonnet,
as she at first intended, but get a new one, for in her present excited
state, no extravagance seemed too prodigal in honor of this grand
occasion. I am afraid that Maud's lesson was not as thorough as it
should have been, for Polly's head was such a chaos of bonnets, gloves,
opera-cloaks and fans, that Maud blundered through, murdering time and
tune at her own sweet will. The instant it was over Polly rushed away
and bought not only the kids but a bonnet frame, a bit of illusion, and
a pink crape rose, which had tempted her for weeks in a certain
shop window, then home and to work with all the skill and speed of a
distracted milliner.

"I 'm rushing madly into expense, I 'm afraid, but the fit is on me
and I 'll eat bread and water for a week to make up for it. I must look
nice, for Tom seldom takes me and ought to be gratified when he does.
I want to do like other girls, just for once, and enjoy myself without
thinking about right and wrong. Now a bit of pink ribbon to tie it with,
and I shall be done in time to do up my best collar," she said, turning
her boxes topsy-turvy for the necessary ribbon in that delightful flurry
which young ladies feel on such occasions.

It is my private opinion that the little shifts and struggles we poor
girls have to undergo beforehand give a peculiar relish to our fun when
we get it. This fact will account for the rapturous mood in which Polly
found herself when, after making her bonnet, washing and ironing her
best set, blacking her boots and mending her fan, she at last, like
Consuelo, "put on a little dress of black silk" and, with the smaller
adornments pinned up in a paper, started for the Shaws',