"Rob run away! He knows better," answered Nina. "Why, he has hardly a kick in him--poor old dear! You wouldn't run away, would you, Rob?" Rob flicked his ears, and gave a slight movement to his tail. This he considered sufficient answer to Nina's tender enquiry. "I wish Brenda was not quite so long," she said. "Why, of course she is a long time. She has got to have her lovely blue silk made up. Fancy Brenda in silk! How astonished father will be! Silk is the dream of his life. He said when he married mother, she wore silk. She never, never wore it since--he said--she could not afford it, only very rich people could. There was a time when I thought of keeping silkworms, and winding off the silk from the cocoons until I had enough to make a dress; but Brenda laughed me out of that." "Well--she's got her deserts. She must have spent a lot of money on the dress," said Fanchon. "She didn't spend much on ours, that I know," said Nina. "Those pink muslins were only sixpence three farthings the yard, and she wouldn't get an extra yard for me, although I did so want mine to have little flounces--I think little flounces are so stylish. Oh dear, dear! I wish she would come!" Here Nina took up a carefully folded parcel which contained the material for the girls' pink muslin dresses. "Let's look at it," she said--"let's see it in the broad light. It'll be something to amuse us." "Oh, but we never can pack it up again," exclaimed Josephine. "Have you got your pocket knife with you, Fanchon?" asked Nina. Fanchon declared that she had. "Well, give it to me, and I will cut a wee hole in the paper, just enough for us to see our darling gowns." This was too fascinating a proposal to be lightly refused, and in the end the girls had removed enough of the brown paper wrapping to disclose a certain portion of the delicate pink muslin which lay folded beneath. "I wonder now," said Nina--she raised her flushed face and looked at her red little person in the tiny square of glass--"I wonder why she makes us wear pink. Do you think, Fanchon--do you think, Josephine, that it suits us?" The two elder girls were quite silent, but a horrified expression crept over Fanchon's face. She was older than the others, and had once heard it said that a girl with red hair--however pretty she might be--ought not to wear pink. A sense of revolt filled her soul. "Why don't you speak?" said Nina. "I--I am thinking," she said, crossly. "Don't worry me." She was thinking to good purpose. The other two seemed to divine her thoughts. They all sat silent and moody. "I shall do a sum in arithmetic to-night," thought Josephine. "I know exactly how many yards of that horrid pink muslin she bought and what the hats cost, and those little cheap shoes, and those gloves." But Josephine did not say the words aloud. After a little time Nina said: