"It is quite nice enough," I urged. "It is scarcely the least tumbled in the world."

"People will think you have not another, my dear."

"What matter would that be?" I said, wholly puzzled.

"Now, my dear Daisy!" said Mrs. Sandford, half laughing—"you are the veriest Daisy in the world, and do not understand the world that you grow in. No matter; just oblige me, and put on something else to-night. What have you got?"

I had other dresses like the rejected one. I had another still, white like them, but the make and quality were different. I hardly knew what it was, for I had never worn it; to please Mrs. Sandford I took it out now. She was pleased. It was like the rest, out of the store my mother had sent me; a soft India muslin, of beautiful texture, made and trimmed as my mother and a Parisian artist could manage between them. But no Parisian artist could know better than my mother how a thing should be.

"That will do!" said Mrs. Sandford approvingly. "Dear me, what lace you Southern ladies do wear, to be sure! A blue sash, now, Daisy?"

"No, ma'am, I think not."

"Rose? It must be blue or rose."

But I thought differently, and kept it white.