Of Fine Feathers

T was made entirely of blush-rose petals and white cobwebs, or so in my prejudiced state of mind, it seemed to me, and it fell about Rosette's feet in beautiful, incomparable folds. It seemed a thing exquisite, unrivaled, marvelous, hopelessly expensive, delicate, perfect, and wonderful. That Rosette should wear it merely to teach me wisdom under the pear-trees in the orchard made me feel extraordinarily happy. That she should consider me worth it!

I tried to express all this coherently in one sentence, and at least I made her understand that I admired her new gown. She looked pleased.

"Is it?" she said doubtfully. "Do you? Are you sure you are n't trying to be agreeable, Jerry? It does n't seem likely, but—"

"You know what you look like in it," said I, abruptly.

"Oh, well," she laughed, "I did think it looked rather sweet. And it's only a very, very cheap muslin, with some of Mother's worn-out lace. Hortense threw it together."

"Threw it together I" I gasped. Worth, I should have thought, at least.

Rosette sat down on the plank seat under the Morella cherry.

"It's very nice of you, Jerry, to like it so much. Any woman would scorn it, you know. Really, it would be considered beneath contempt by any person of means and unlimited credit. Our credit is getting more and more limited, and Mother cuts me down every quarter. Until I marry money—" She sighed.

"Rosette!"

"And you think I need n't change it for lunch? Mr. Vanderberg's coming."

"Perhaps," I said miserably and unkindly, "something of crimson plush, with all your jewelry hung about you in festoons, would please him better. Talk about casting pearls before— Rose-leaves and moonshine will be thrown away before Vanderhog."

"On the contrary," said Rosette, coldly, "his taste is excellent. And his name is 'berg,' not 'hog.' I 've told you that-before."

"I beg your pardon, Rosette."

"I wish you'd try to do him justice, Jerry," she said gravely, "especially as he may—"

"Be your husband some day?" I suggested miserably.

"Who knows?" Rosette sighed. "But about dress, Jerry. It's a dreadfully serious question for a poverty-stricken girl. I used to try to dress to please women once, when I first came out, but I don't now."

"Why not?" I asked, with some disapproval.

"Too expensive." She shook her dark head sadly. "It can't be done. Now, a man—"

"Don't stop. You interest me."

Rosette glanced at her pretty gown and smiled.

"Well, any rag pleases a man if it's pretty and fresh and well-cut."

"What more can a woman want?" I asked in surprise.

"Expense and fashion," she replied promptly. "But with men—I wonder, Jerry, if you remember that dress you liked so much—"

"Which of 'em?" said I.

"A yellowish thing. The one I wore the day—oh, you know—"

"Go on," said I, hurt by the sudden sting of a priceless memory.

"Well, it had once been an old, faded forget-me-not muslin, and I dyed it myself. It was a thing that had cost about six three when it was new. No woman would have been taken in for a moment, but you were tremendously struck—or you seemed to be. It made you think of your favorite roses,—William Allan Richardson, I think you said,—and you sent me some to wear with it, like a dear. Apricots and cream, too, you said I looked like. Do you remember?"

"I remember," said I, with a groan.

"And yet you hated that pastel Paquin gown I had for Lucille's wedding, and it cost ever so much money, not to speak of the night of sighs and tears I was obliged to devote to it after Daddy had seen the bill."

What was there in this frank expression of her opinion which was making my spirits rise so high? If Rosette was learning to dress with such beautiful and effective inexpensiveness, perhaps—

"I suppose, if I married a poor man," she said slowly and inconsistently, "I should be expected to live entirely in one tweed tailor-made a year, with thick boots and a deerstalker hat."

"On the contrary," said I, hotly, "to your own proving."

"Mr. Vanderberg hates mannish clothes," Rosette murmured thoughtfully. "I'm afraid he likes a woman to look a little bit theatrical. Floppy hats, don't you know, and lots of rustle—"

"Vandersplash," said I, "is at heart an Eastern, a great mogul. If you want to please him. Rosette, dress yourself in a white saree, with gold stars and silver moons on it; wear silver anklets on your little brown feet, to clash and chime with joy at his coming; fetter your delicate wrists together with jasmine chains; and veil yourself to the rest of the world."

Rosette grew scarlet, and, indeed, it was unpardonable of me.

"How dare you, Jerry! Oh, how dare you!"

"Forgive me, Rosette."

It was the utter misery in my eyes which she forgave, however. She knew I should never ask her to marry a beggar, and so brought herself once more to overlook my jealousy of the more fortunate.

"If you really want to know what I think about dress, Jerry, I think it is one of a woman's most important duties to wear pretty clothes, to brighten up dark, dull rooms and ugly, monotonous streets; to wear pretty, delicate colors whenever she can, and to be as different as possible from a gray-and-brown check-plaided man."

"You do your duty," I murmured, with my silly heart in my eyes.

"When I see," said Rosette, hotly, "the hundreds of rich women who help to make our little town hideous instead of pretty, I could kill them, in their tweeds and their friezes and their absurd tartans belonging to no clan in the world. And their hats! Oh, Jerry!"

"I 've seen their hats," said I, with sympathy.

"Dress is everything to a woman," Rosette went on. "Don't talk to me of beauty unadorned!"

"I was n't," said I, with ready sympathy.

"Mother once had little Chrystabel Grey up from the country. Her father's a doctor, you know, on nothing a year, and her mother's evangelical. You should have seen her best frock—confirmation, I should think, high, with a blue sash, and one stiff little flounce. And her hair! We had a little impromptu dance, and no one would dance with her. I had to make my partners promise to ask her before I gave them any with me, and then they did n't even attempt to make the best of her and draw her out. It was her get-up which made her seem so impossible in every way—dull, heavy, stupid; and mother and I were in despair. The poor child went to bed in tears; said she hated the vanities of this world, and was going into a Protestant sisterhood to live a life of self-denial and Christian endeavor. It went to my heart to see the way the village dressmaker had cut the skirt of that unspeakable frock. And the hunt ball was the next day but one. Oh, Jerry!"

"But was n't it little Miss Chrissie who—"

"Yes," said Rosette, with meaning. "And you were one of the worst, Jerry. But it was Hortense who did it—Hortense and I. We took that child into my room next day, and we found an old lace gown of mine, worn into rags at the bottom, but Chrystabel was short, and we cut the rags off. And we made it fit over an apple-green slip—I'd worn it over pink, you see. And I 've never seen prettier dimpled arms and a rounder neck. Hortense did her hair. It was flaxen, and lots of it."

"Some of the men said she was the belle of that particular ball," I ventured, "though I—"

Rosette sighed.

"She's married now," said she, "to lots and lots of money. And she met him that night. I lent her my emerald chain that I loved as my soul, and she stole my first sweetheart away from me in two waltzes and a barn-dance—"

"I only danced twice—" I began hastily. She looked all innocent surprise.

"You, Jerry? I'd forgotten that you were there. But you should see her sables now."

"Here's Vanderpry coming out to look for you," I cried savagely. "Why on earth can't the man wait till—"

"He knows how pleased I always am to see him," said Rosette, gently. "And it's 'berg,' Jerry, not 'pry.' But it was all fine feathers that did Chrystabel's business, and that proves everything, does n't it?"

"Everything," said I, with a groan.