"It dumbfounds me," said Linda, "to have Eileen do this for me."She had put on the shoes and stockings, a plain georgette blouse of a soft, brownish wood-gray, with a bit of heavy brown silk embroidery decorating the front, and the jacket. The dress was of silky changeable tricolette, the skirt plain. Where a fold lifted and was strongly lighted, it was an exquisite silver-gray;where a shadow fell deeply it was gray-brown. The coat reached half way to the knees. It had a rippling skirt with a row of brown embroidery around it, a deep belt with double buttoning at the waistline, and collar and sleeves in a more elaborate pattern of the same embroidery as the skirt. Linda perched the hat on her head, pulled it down securely, and faced Katy.
"Now then!" she challenged.
"And it's a perfect dress!" said Katy proudly, "and you're just the colleen to wear it. My, but I wisht your father could be seeing ye the now."With almost reverent hands Linda removed the clothing and laid it away. Then she read a letter from Marian that was waiting for her, telling Katy scraps of it in running comment as she scanned the sheets.
"She likes her boarding place. There are nice people in it. She has got a wonderful view from the windows of her room. She is making friends. She thinks one of the men at Nicholson and Snow's is just fine; he is helping her all he can, on the course she is taking. And she wants us to look carefully everywhere for any scrap of paper along the hedge or around the shrubbery on the north side of the house. One of her three sheets of plans is missing. I don't see where in the world it could have gone, Katy."Katy spread out her hands in despair.
"There was not a scrap of a sheet of paper in the room when Icleaned it," she said, "not a scrap. And if I had seen a sheet flying around the yard I would have picked it up. She just must be mistaken about having lost it here. She must have opened her case on the train and lost it there."Linda shook her head.
"I put that stuff in the case myself," she said, "and the clothes on top of it, and she wouldn't have any reason for taking those things out on the train. I can't understand, but she did have three rough sketches. She had her heart set on winning that prize and it would be a great help to her, and certainly it was the most comprehensive and convenient plan for a house of that class that I ever have seen. If I ever have a house, she is going to plan it, even if she doesn't get to plan John Gilman's as he always used to say that she should. And by the way, Katy, isn't it kind of funny for Eileen to go away over Sunday when it's his only holiday?""Oh, she'll telephone him," said Katy, "and very like, he'll go down, or maybe he is with her. Ye needn't waste any sympathy on him. Eileen will take care that she has him so long as she thinks she wants him."Later it developed that Eileen had secured the invitation because she was able to produce three most eligible men. Not only was John Gilman with the party, but Peter Morrison and HenryAnderson were there as well. It was in the nature of a hastily arranged celebration, because the deal for three acres of land that Peter Morrison most coveted on the small plateau, mountain walled, in Lilac Valley, was in escrow. He had made a payment on it. Anderson was working on his plans. Contractors had been engaged, and on Monday work would begin. The house was to bebuilt as soon as possible, and Peter Morrison had arranged that the garage was to be built first. This he meant to occupy as a residence so that he could be on hand to superintend the construction of the new home and to protect, as far as possible, the natural beauty and the natural growth of the location.
Early Sunday morning Linda and Katy, with a full lunch box and a full gasoline tank, slid from the driveway and rolled down the main street of Lilac Valley toward the desert.
"We'll switch over and strike San Fernando Road," said Linda, "and I'll scout around Sunland a bit and see if I can find anything that will furnish material for another new dish."That day was wonderful for Katy. She trotted after Linda over sandy desert reaches, along the seashore, up mountain trails, and through canyons connected by long stretches of motoring that was more like flying than riding. She was tired but happy when she went to bed. Monday morning she was an interested spectator as Linda dressed for school.
"Sure, and hasn't the old chrysalis opened up and let out the nicest little lady-bird moth, Katy?' inquired Linda as she smoothed her gray-gold skirts. "I think myself that this dress is a trifle too good for school. When I get my allowance next week I think I'll buy me a cloth skirt and a couple of wash waists and save this for better; but it really was good of Eileen to take so much pains and send it to me, when she was busy planning a trip."Katy watched Linda go, and she noted the new light in her eyes, the new lift of her head, and the proud sureness of her step, and she wondered if a new dress could do all that for a girl, she scarcely believed that it could. And, too, she had very serious doubts about the dress. She kept thinking of it during the day, and when Eileen came, in the middle of the afternoon, at the first words on her lips: "Has my dress come?" Katy felt a wave of illness surge through her. She looked at Eileen so helplessly that that astute reader of human nature immediately Suspected something.
"I sent it special," she said, "because I didn't know at the time that I was going to Riverside and I wanted to work on it. Isn't it here yet?"Then Katy prepared to do battle for the child of her heart.
"Was the dress ye ordered sent the one Miss Linda was telling ye about?" she asked tersely.
"Yes, it was," said Eileen. "Linda has got mighty good taste.
Any dress she admired was sure to be right. She said there was a beautiful dress at 'The Mode'. I went and looked, and sure enough there was, a perfect beauty.""But she wanted the dress for herself," said Katy.
"It was not a suitable dress for school," said Eileen.
"Well, it strikes me," said Katy, "that it was just the spittin'
