"There," said Elsie, adding another ruffle to the pile on the bed,--"there's the fifth done. It's going to be ever so pretty, I think. I'm glad you had it all white; it's a great deal nicer." "Cecy wanted me to have a blue bodice and sash," said Clover, "but I wouldn't. Then she tried to persuade me to get a long spray of pink roses for the skirt." "I'm so glad you didn't! Cecy was always crazy about pink roses. I only wonder she didn't wear them when she was married!" Yes; the excellent Cecy, who at thirteen had announced her intention to devote her whole life to teaching Sunday School, visiting the poor, and setting a good example to her more worldly contemporaries, had actually forgotten these fine resolutions, and before she was twenty had become the wife of Sylvester Slack, a young lawyer in a neighboring town! Cecy's wedding and wedding-clothes, and Cecy's house-furnishing had been the great excitement of the preceding year in Burnet; and a fresh excitement had come since in the shape of Cecy's baby, now about two months old, and named "Katherine Clover," after her two friends. This made it natural that Cecy and her affairs should still be of interest in the Carr household; and Johnnie, at the time we write of, was making her a week's visit. "She _was_ rather wedded to them," went on Clover, pursuing the subject of the pink roses. "She was almost vexed when I wouldn't buy the spray. But it cost lots, and I didn't want it in the least, so I stood firm. Besides, I always said that my first party dress should be plain white. Girls in novels always wear white to their first balls; and fresh flowers are a great deal prettier, any way, than artificial. Katy says she'll give me some violets to wear." "Oh, will she? That will be lovely!" cried the adoring Elsie. "Violets look just like you, somehow. Oh, Clover, what sort of a dress do you think I shall have when I grow up and go to parties and things? Won't it be awfully interesting when you and I go out to choose it?" Just then the noise of some one running upstairs quickly made the sisters look up from their work. Footsteps are very significant at times, and these footsteps suggested haste and excitement. Another moment, the door opened, and Katy dashed in, calling out, "Papa!--Elsie, Clover, where's papa?" "He went over the river to see that son of Mr. White's who broke his leg. Why, what's the matter?" asked Clover. "Is somebody hurt?" inquired Elsie, startled at Katy's agitated looks. "No, not hurt, but poor Mrs. Ashe is in such trouble."