“It was dreadful. The rains were so heavy even in March that a big piece of land near where we live slid down. Where it used to be just a slope it’s now like a precipice. And with mother sick and all the trouble to keep things warm and dry, I got the fever. That’s why they made me come to-night--just to have a little amusement, mother said, because I’d had such a hard winter. And we made this dress--” she touched the skirt with a hand that betrayed a conscious feminine satisfaction in her apparel--“it’s some stuff mother had, very good stuff. We couldn’t have afforded to buy anything like it, and I don’t think you could here at Foleys. But we did spend something. These flowers--” she indicated two bunches of artificial red roses at her neck and belt--“we bought them. They were a dollar; fifty cents each bunch.” She touched the bunch at her waist with a light, arranging hand, saw something which made her brows contract and her fingers seize on the flowers and drag them hurriedly away from their resting place. Where they had been a red stain--dye from the cheap leaves--disfigured her dress. She stared at it for a moment, and then looked up at the Colonel in blank, heart-stricken dismay. “Why, look what they’ve done,” she faltered. The Colonel for a moment was nonplussed. He had no consolation for such a catastrophe. The girl seized her handkerchief and rubbed the mark with dainty energy. The red dye was imparted to the handkerchief but the stain was only enlarged. “Mother’s dress!” she moaned, rubbing distractedly. “Why, she kept it for years in the trunk, waiting for some such time as this to come. And now look at it!” She raised tragic eyes to the Colonel’s face. He would have delighted in offering her another dress--anything she had chosen to buy. But she was a lady and this he could not do. So he sat looking sympathetically at her, inwardly swearing at the social conventions which made it impossible for him to repair the damage. He felt a man’s pity for the meanness of the disaster that had such a power to darken and blight one poor little girl’s horizon. “Don’t rub any more,” was all he could say, “I’m afraid it’s only making it worse. Maybe your mother will know of some way of cleaning it.” The girl made no reply for the moment. He could see that the mishap had completely dashed her spirits. She unpinned the other bunch, which had left an even uglier mark at her throat, and laid them down beside her on the bench. “What an unlucky evening!” she exclaimed, looking down at them with an air of utter dejection. “Only two people ask me to dance, and the flowers we paid a dollar for spoil my dress, my first party dress. And they all wanted me to come because I was going to have such a good time!”