ren forward these days."

"I wouldn't let Missy go if Mrs. Allen wasn't going to be there to look
after her," said mother.

"Mother, may I have the hem of my pink dress let down?" asked Missy.

At that father laughed, and Aunt Nettie might just as well have said: "I
told you so!" as put on that expression.

"It's my first real party," Missy went on, "and I'd like to look as
pretty as I can."

Something prompted father, as he rose from the table, to pause and lay
his hand on Missy's shoulder.

"Can't you get her a new ribbon or something, mother?" he asked.

"Maybe a new sash," answered mother reflectively. "They've got some
pretty brocaded pink ribbon at Bonner's."

After which Missy finished her breakfast in a rapture. It is queer how
you can eat, and like what you eat very much, and yet scarcely taste it
at all.

When the two hours of practicing were over, mother sent her down town
to buy the ribbon for the sash--a pleasant errand. She changed the black
tie on her middy blouse to a scarlet one and let the ends fly out of her
grey waterproof cape. Why is it that red is such a divine colour on a
rainy day?

Upon her return there was still an hour before dinner, and she sat by
the dining-room window with Aunt Nettie, to darn stockings.

"Well, Missy," said Aunt Nettie presently, "a penny for your thoughts."

Missy looked up vaguely, at a loss. "I wasn't thinking of anything
exactly," she said.

"What were you smiling about?"

"Was I smiling?"

Just then mother entered and Aunt Nettie said: "Missy smiles, and
doesn't know it. Party!"

But Missy knew it wasn't the party entirely. Nor was it entirely the
sound of the rain swishing, nor the look of the trees quietly weeping,
nor of the vivid red patches of geranium beds. Everything could have
been quite different, and still she'd have felt happy. Her feeling,
mysteriously, was as much from things INSIDE her as from things outside.

After dinner was over and the baby minded for an hour, mother made the
pink-brocaded sash. It was very lovely. Then she had an hour to herself,
and since the rain wouldn't permit her to spend it in the summerhouse,
she took a book up to her own room. It was a book of poems from the
Public Library.

The first poem she opened to was one of the most marvellous things she
had ever read--almost as wonderful as "The Blessed Damozel." She was
glad she had chanced upon it on a rainy day, and when she felt like
this. It was called "