“Oh, let me see them, Frieda. I saw so many that I don’t know which Aunt Alida took, and I don’t know which of those she took she brought home in the carriage!” cried Beth falling out of her chair in the keenness of her interest. “Don’t you ever sit down and do nothing in New York, Frieda? It’s only because it’s my first day that it rushes so, isn’t it?” “I can’t say that’s it, Miss Beth,” said Frieda. “If you’d come here from Germany you’d think things rushed all the time.” “Some day, if ever we can sit down, you’ll tell me about Germany, won’t you please, Frieda? I always thought it must be heavenly to live in a country where storks stood on one leg on the edges of chimneys on straw-covered roofs, as they do in Germany, in my Grimm’s Tales,” cried Beth. “Isn’t that the dearest dress? Don’t you imagine Aunt Alida brought it home with us so I could put it on before my cousins saw me, and so they wouldn’t think I didn’t look nice? Of course I see already that Miss Tappan, who made my winter suit, isn’t quite such a fine, fine dressmaker as she looks where Aunt Rebecca lives--where Miss Tappan and I live, too.” “Miss Beth,” said Frieda, wisely avoiding the question, “I’ve laid everything out, even your wrapper, and now, if you please, I’ll have to dress you; we haven’t any too much time.” “All right,” sighed Beth. “Will you tell me how to begin to let you dress me, Frieda? I always dress myself, you know.” Frieda laughed outright; she was a young and pretty maid, much nearer Beth’s idea of a maid than Anna Mary, whom, Beth reproachfully reminded herself, she had found most kind. But she was glad that Frieda was young and pretty. “Well, then, Miss Beth,” Frieda instructed her, “first of all, if you will sit on that higher chair, please, I will put on these nice silk stockings and your slippers.” Beth complied. When they were on she surveyed her slender legs and feet with undisguised admiration. “I never knew they could look like that!” she sighed, remembering the sturdy straightness of the lines of her feet in their old-time coverings. Swiftly Frieda divested the little girl of the plain underclothing, stitching, buttons and a narrow edge of Hamburg embroidery its only ornaments, which Aunt Rebecca had made. In its place she clothed her in the dainty French garments of Aunt Alida’s buying, tucked, lace-inserted, ruffled, and cut on lines of beauty. Beth laid her discarded underskirt beside her new one, contrasting them. “Poor Aunt Rebecca!” she said. “But she wouldn’t mind if she understood--but she never, never will! They look exactly like the two aunts who got them for me.” Frieda was not heeding Beth’s audible reflections. “Now, Miss Beth, your hair,” she said, and Beth, profiting by her experience of the previous night, seated herself before the dressing table. Frieda threw over her shoulders a butterfly garment made of handkerchiefs, apparently, and began to brush Beth’s abundant hair.