She regarded her slender legs admiringly as they appeared, like slender black stems out of particularly full calyxes, below the puffy dark blue silk bloomers which she had donned. “I’m afraid my great-aunt Rebecca, at home, would not think this was a nice costume. She says a great deal about being feminine in all your ways. Maybe she’d think bloomers were not feminine--though in the pictures of Turkish ladies they always wear them and have their heads tied up so you can only see their eyes. They must think noses and mouths aren’t feminine there.” Frieda had long ago given up even the hope of following the course of Beth’s rapid thoughts; she wisely confined herself now to the main point as she replied: “Wait till you get the tunic on, Miss Beth. It’s just a regular dress.” It was and a remarkably pretty one. It fitted the round, childish slenderness to perfection, falling softly in deep silken pleats below the knee bands of the doubtful bloomers. Deep Van Dyck points of lace formed a collar and, reversed, made effective cuffs on the sleeves. A cap with a jaunty feather was the unnecessary last touch of completeness. “It won’t stay on,” said Beth, surveying herself with undisguised delight in the long mirror. “But it’s the loveliest cap ever! I feel just like Claverhouse with the Bonnets of Bonny Dundee. You don’t know about that, do you, Frieda? You couldn’t, because, if you’re German, you read mostly about the Watch on the Rhine, I suppose. It’s almost the best of all those splendid things--all those English and Scotch Middle Ages poems which I’m crazy about.” Beth began to caper all around the room, watching ecstatically the blue silken figure that followed her, capering as she did, in the mirrors of her dresser, dressing table and cheval glass. “I’m one of the bluebirds, and I feel like flying!” she panted, obeying an inviting gesture from Frieda to sit before the dressing table and have her hair made tight for the exercise to come. “Frieda, isn’t it the very best thing in all the world to be a little girl and jump and fly around? It’s like ‘We are Seven’--I had that to say in school--‘A little child, that feels its life in every limb.’ Isn’t it the best thing, just glorious?” “It is, Miss Beth, when you’re like that. Some isn’t,” said Frieda, stooping as if to pick up something. Beth thought her voice had an odd sound; she squirmed around in her chair and caught the glimmer of the tears which she had suspected were in Frieda’s eyes. In an instant warm-hearted Beth was on her feet and had her arms around her pretty young maid. “Frieda, dear, what is it?” she murmured in the voice that few had ever resisted in her short life. “What makes you feel bad? You have to tell me, because you _have_ to, and I want to know! Please, Frieda!”