urled, starched, and wearing our very
best clothes. My! but it was fine. There were many lights in the room
and it was hung with greens. There was a crowd even though it was
early. On Miss Amelia's table was a volume of history that was the
prize, and every one was looking and acting the very best he knew how,
although there were cases where they didn't know so very much.

Our Shelley was the handsomest girl there, until the Princess came, and
then they both were. Shelley wore one of her city frocks and a quilted
red silk hood that was one of her Christmas gifts, and she looked just
like a handsome doll. She made every male creature in that room feel
that she was pining for him alone. May had a gay plaid frock and curls
nearly a yard long, and so had I, but both our frocks and curls were
homemade; mother would have them once in a while; father and I couldn't
stop her.

But there was not a soul there who didn't have some sort of gift to
rejoice over, and laughter and shouts of "Merry Christmas!" filled the
room. It was growing late and there was some talk of choosers, when
the door opened and in a rush of frosty air the Princess and Laddie
entered. Every one stopped short and stared.

There was good reason. The Princess looked as if she had accidentally
stepped from a frame. She was always lovely and beautifully dressed,
but to-night she was prettier and finer than ever before. You could
fairly hear their teeth click as some of the most envious of those
girls caught sight of her, for she was wearing a new hat!--a black
velvet store hat, fitting closely over her crown, with a rim of twisted
velvet, a scarlet bird's wing, and a big silver buckle. Her dress was
of scarlet cloth cut in forms, and it fitted as if she had been melted
and poured into it. It was edged around the throat, wrists, and skirt
with narrow bands of fur, and she wore a loose, long, silk-lined coat
of the same material, and worst of all, furs--furs such as we had heard
wealthy and stylish city ladies were wearing. A golden brown cape that
reached to her elbows, with ends falling to the knees, finished in the
tails of some animal, and for her hands a muff as big as a nail keg.

Now, there was not a girl in that room, except the Princess, an she had
those clothes, who wouldn't have flirted like a peacock, almost
bursting with pride; but because the Princess had them, and they
didn't, they sat stolid and sullen, and cast glances at each ot