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Rh the fit is on me, and I'll eat bread and water for a week to make up for it. I must look nice, for Tom seldom takes me, and ought to be gratified when he does. I want to do like other girls, just for once, and enjoy myself without thinking about right and wrong. Now a bit of pink ribbon to tie it with, and I shall be done in time to do up my best collar," she said, turning her boxes topsy-turvy for the necessary ribbon, in that delightful flurry which young ladies feel on such occasions.

It is my private opinion, that the little shifts and struggles we poor girls have to undergo beforehand, give a peculiar relish to our fun when we get it. This fact will account for the rapturous mood in which Polly found herself when, after making her bonnet, washing and ironing her best set, blacking her boots and mending her fan, she at last, like Consuelo, "put on a little dress of black silk," and with the smaller adornments pinned up in a paper, started for the Shaws', finding it difficult to walk decorously, when her heart was dancing in her bosom.

Maud happened to be playing a redowa up in the parlor, and Polly came prancing into the room so evidently spoiling for a dance, that Tom, who was there, found it impossible to resist catching her about the waist, and putting her through the most intricate evolutions, till Maud's fingers gave out.

"That was splendid! Oh, Tom, thank you so much for asking me to-night. I feel just like having a regular good time," cried Polly, when she stopped, with her hat hanging round her neck, and her hair looking as if she had been out in a high wind.