"Well, well!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray, drying her eyes and beginning to laugh. "What a couple of sillies we are, to be sure. Now go, Anne, to my dressmaker, Mrs. Harvey, who has orders to make you four dresses, two for evening and two for afternoon. Mrs. Harvey has good taste and will help you select them. But perhaps you will like the ones she and I looked at the other day. One of them I am sure you will admire. I chose it specially because it will give color to your pale cheeks." "What is it, Mrs. Gray?" asked Anne eagerly. "It's pink crepe de Chine, my dear." And Anne held her breath to keep from crying again. CHAPTER XII MIRIAM PLANS A REVENGE For weeks Miriam Nesbit had felt a sullen resentment toward her brother, David, because he persisted in being friends with at least two of the girls in Oakdale High School whom she disliked most. When he announced, one morning at breakfast, that he had been included in Mrs. Gray's house party, his sister suddenly burst into tears of passionate rage. "Please don't cry, Miriam, old girl," said David, who was not of a quarrelsome disposition. "I'm awfully sorry if I hurt you, but, you know, Mrs. Gray was one of my earliest sweethearts." Which was perfectly true. When David was a little boy he used to crawl through the garden hedge and call on the charming old lady nearly every day. David had hoped that Miriam would laugh at this, but she stormed all the more, while poor Mrs. Nesbit looked wretched. "It isn't Mrs. Gray," sobbed Miriam. "But to think that my own brother would associate with Grace Harlowe, who is always working against me, and that common little Pierson girl whose sister takes in sewing!" "Miriam, Miriam!" exclaimed Mrs. Nesbit, "I am shocked to hear you say such things. Because the girl is poor she is not necessarily common. Your grandfather was a poor man, too. He started his career as a machinist. You would never have had the money and position you have now if he had not become an inventor. Is it possible you would try to keep some one else from rising in life, when your own family struggled with poverty years ago?" Miriam was silenced for a moment. She had seldom heard her mother speak so forcibly; but Mrs. Nesbit had seen, with growing misgivings, the innate snobbishness in her daughter's character, and for a long time she had been looking for an opportunity like the one that now presented itself. David had risen during Miriam's contemptuous speech, and had turned very white; which was always a signal that his slow wrath had been kindled at last; but since he was a child he had had such admirable control of his feelings that it had often been remarked by older people. Miriam, however, knew the sign and resorted again to tears to draw attention to her own sufferings. "You and mother have turned against me," she cried. "Mother, you have always loved David best, anyhow."