My sister had left school without graduating, which had greatly disappointed me. But, more practical than I, and less studious, and confronted by our growing needs and straitened means, seeing a way in which she could help, she had taken matters in her own hands, and a year or more before I left school had begun to learn dress-making. I used to marvel to see her take the big shears and cut into new material--such skill and daring, and she such a slip of a girl! What pretty gowns she made for herself and me, talking me out of my “old maidish notions,” and making me wear things that were “stylish” in spite of myself, for I often objected strenuously to prevailing modes. I can see now that it was individuality in dress that I was striving for; but, though failing to achieve it to any extent, I habitually dissented from conformity. How lovingly she worked on my graduation gown, and how pretty she looked in the old-rose silk which she earned and made for herself and first wore on that occasion!--the same old-rose that played so prominent a part in our wardrobe for several subsequent years. For she let me take it during my college course (when she needed it herself); then when she married she remodelled it for her trousseau. Again, when I was practising, and money was scarce, she made it over for me--the gown going back and forth between us like a shuttlecock; and every change in its form, and every scrap of the silk I see to-day, tells its tale of love and devotion and self-sacrifice, inseparably linked with our girlish hopes and trials and experiences. I remember with delight the gowns I had to start with to college (no bride ever enjoyed her trousseau more), and I recall with tenderness the hours Sister spent on them, planning how she could accomplish what she wished with as little outlay as possible. The new world I was entering, the novel experiences, all come back to me now when I see bits of the old garments--my brown travelling suit that I wore to lectures; my plaid one that was made over, even prettier than when first made; my “best dress”; my red “wrapper”; my gymnasium suit--how much they meant to me, and how impossible they would have been but for Sister’s love and efficiency! You may rip and remodel old gowns as you will, But the scent of old memories clings round them still. CHAPTER VIII THE “MEDIC”