"Sure, this old hat and suit of yours is wort' a lot more money, Helen," declared the Russian girl. "But they ain't just the style, yuh see. And style is everything to a girl. Why, nobody'd take you for a greenie _now_!" Helen was quite wise enough to know that she had never been dressed so cheaply before; but she recognized, too, the truth of her friend's statement. "Now, you take the dress home, and the hat. Maybe you can find a cheap tailor who will make over the dress. There's enough material in it. That's an awful wide skirt, you know." "But I couldn't walk in a skirt as narrow as the one you have on, Sadie." "Chee! if it was stylish," confessed Sadie, "I'd find a way to walk in a piece of stove-pipe!" and she giggled. So Helen left for uptown with her bundles, wearing her new suit and hat. She took a Fourth Avenue car and got out only a block from her uncle's house. As she hurried through the side street and came to the Madison Avenue corner, she came face-to-face with Flossie, coming home from school with a pile of books under her arm. Flossie looked quite startled when she saw her cousin. Her eyes grew wide and she swept the natty looking, if cheaply-dressed Western girl, with an appreciative glance. "Goodness me! What fine feathers!" she cried. "You've been loading up with new clothes--eh? Say, I like that dress." "Better than the caliker one?" asked Helen, slily. "You're not so foolish as to believe I liked _that_," returned Flossie, coolly. "I told Belle and Hortense that you weren't as dense as they seemed to think you." "Thanks!" said Helen, drily. "But that dress is just in the mode," repeated Flossie, with some admiration. "Your father's kindness enabled me to get it," said Helen, briefly. "Humph!" said Flossie, frankly. "I guess it didn't cost you much, then." Helen did not reply to this comment; but as she turned to go down to the basement door, Flossie caught her by the arm. "Don't you do that!" she exclaimed. "Belle can be pretty mean sometimes. You come in at the front door with me." "No," said Helen, smiling. "You come in at the area door with _me_. It's easier, anyway. There's a maid just opening it." So the two girls entered the house together. They were late to lunch--indeed, Helen did not wish any; but she did not care to explain why she was not hungry. "What's the matter with you, Flossie?" demanded Hortense. "We've done eating, Belle and I. And if you wish your meals here, Helen, please get here on time for them." "You mind your own business!" cried Flossie, suddenly taking up the cudgels for her cousin as well as herself. "You aren't the boss, Hortense! I got kept after school, anyway. And cook can make something hot for me and Helen." "You _need_ to be kept after school--from the kind of English you use," sniffed her sister.