She laughed, a little nervously, all the time she worked. ''Why, look here in the glass,'' she said at last. ''We might be sisters!''
She had tugged my old brown dress off me and put the queer orange one over my head, and she made me stand before the glass while she saw to the hooks. ''Breathe in,'' she said. ''Breathe harder! The gown grips tight, but will give you the figure of a lady.''
Of course, her own waist was narrow, and she was taller by an inch. My hair was the darker. We did not look like sisters, we just both looked like frights. My dress showed all my ankle. If a boy from the Borough had seen me then, I should have fallen down and died.
But there were no Borough boys to see me; and no Borough girls, either. And it was a very good velvet. I stood, plucking at the fringes on the skirt, while Maud ran to her jewel box for a brooch, that she fastened to my bosom, tilting her head to see how it looked. Then there came a knock on the parlour door.
''There''s Margaret,'' she said, her face quite pink. She called, ''Come here to the dressing-room, Margaret!''
Margaret came and made a curtsey, looking straight at me. She said,
''I have just come for your tray, mi— Oh! Miss Smith! Is it you, t