I believe that this is the first conversation that ever I can remember. Up to this time, I had talked as naturally as the night secretes dreams, with no sense of responsibility for either to mean anything. But that day I became uncomfortably conscious of the trend of the talk. “I have to have my new dress tried on before supper,” Delia announced, her back to the river and her mouth filled with a jam sandwich. “It’s blue plaid, with blue buttons and blue tassels on,” she volunteered. “My new dress Aunt Harriet brought me from the City isn’t going to be made up till last day of school,” Margaret Amelia informed us. “It’s got pink flowers in and it cost sixty cents a yard.” “Margaret and I are going to have white shoes before we go visiting,” Betty remembered. “I got two new dresses that ain’t made up yet. Mamma says I got so many I don’t need them,” observed Calista, with an indifferent manner and a soft, triumphant glance. Whereat we all sat silent. I struggled with the moment, but it was too much for me. “I got a white silk lining to my new dress,” I let it be known. “It’s made, but I haven’t had it on yet. China silk,” I added conscientiously. Then, moved perhaps by a common discomfort, we all looked toward Mary Elizabeth. I think I loved her from that moment. “None of you’s got the new style sleeves,” she said serenely, and held aloft the arm whose sleeve was slit from wrist to shoulder. We all laughed together, but Delia pounced upon the arm. She caught and held it. “What’s that on your arm?” she cried, and we all looked. From the elbow up the skin was mottled a dull, ugly purple, as if rough hands had been there. Mary Elizabeth flushed. “Ain’t you ever had any bruises on you?” she inquired in a tone so finely modulated that Delia actually hastened to defend herself from the impeachment of inexperience. “Sure,” she said heartily. “I counted ’em last night. I got seven.” “I got five and a great long skin,” Betty competed hotly. “Pooh,” said Calista, “I’ve got a scratch longer than my hand is. Teacher said maybe I’d get an infect,” she added importantly. Then we kept on neutral ground, such as blank-books and Fourth of July and planning to go bare-foot some day, until Calista attacked a pickled peach which she had brought. “Our whole cellar’s full of pickled peaches,” I incautiously observed. “I could have brought some if I’d thought.” “We got more than that,” said Delia, instantly. “We got a thousand glasses of jelly left over from last year.” “A thousand!” repeated Margaret Amelia, in derision. “A hundred, you mean.” “Well,” Delia said, “it’s a lot. And jars and jars and jars of preserves. And cans and cans and _cans_....”