She and Charlotte Davis were in the latter's dainty room, and spread on the bed before them was Charlotte's new party frock. Charlotte's father was the wealthiest man in Shadyville, and both she and her frock did his wealth justice. She was now at home, for the Easter vacation, from a fashionable boarding-school in Baltimore, the Shadyville Seminary not satisfying Mr. Davis's requirements for his youngest and favorite daughter. Her absence from the little town during the greater part of the past two years had enabled her to erase its traces. She had become a typical city-bred girl and she appeared pert, smartly dressed and, for her sixteen years, amazingly mature. She had always been prettier than Sheila, though no one had ever realized it and probably no one ever would. For her prettiness was so informed with sharp intelligence that her face had a challenging and almost aggressive quality. Boys had never admired her, and men were not likely to do so either, so lacking was she in the softer and more appealing charms of her sex. Even at sixteen her bright blue eyes were a trifle hard, not because of what they had seen--for she was, in experience, still the nice little ingénue--but of what they had seen _through_. The veil of credulity never dimmed her clear, bold glance. But for Sheila she was always gentle, so strong in this shrewd, fastidious young creature was her one deep and uncritical affection. As the two girls examined the frock on the bed--a rose chiffon over silk that fairly shrieked of expense--Sheila sighed. "Will you wear it Friday night?" she inquired wistfully. For on Friday night Charlotte was to give a party--a real evening party to which the debutantes and even the older set were coming, as well as the school-girls and boys. It would be Sheila's first grown-up party--and she had only a white muslin and a blue sash to make herself fine with. Thus Mrs. Caldwell had dressed for parties until her marriage, and it had never occurred to her to provide any other costume for Sheila, who was not yet quite sixteen. Besides, in Mrs. Caldwell's opinion--and even in the exquisite Peter's--there was no sweeter sight than a young girl in white muslin and blue ribbons. But to Sheila, in comparison with Charlotte's splendor, the white muslin seemed unspeakably dowdy. And so, when she asked Charlotte about her toilette for the great occasion, it was with a heart of unfestive heaviness. "Of course I'll wear this. That's what I got it for. Oh, Sheila, aren't the little sleeves cunning? Just half way to the elbow--it's lucky my arms aren't thin!" But Sheila only sighed again in response to Charlotte's enthusiasm, and now Charlotte heard the sigh and glanced at her with sudden attentiveness. "What will you wear?" she demanded. "I'll have to wear my white muslin. I haven't anything else." "Oh, Sheila, that's too bad!"