On this evening the Elliot-Smiths would give their long-promised party.  The wish of Annie Day’s heart was gratified; she had angled for an invitation to this merry-making and obtained it.  Lucy Marsh was also going, and several other St. Benet’s girls would be present.

Early in the evening Rosalind retired to her own room, locked her door, and, taking out her new white dress, laid it across the bed.  It was a very pretty dress, made of soft silk, which did not rustle, but lay in graceful puffs and folds on body and skirt.  It was just the dress to make this young, slight figure of Rosalind’s look absolutely charming.  She stood over it now and regarded it lovingly.  The dress had been obtained, like most of Rosalind’s possessions, by manoeuvres.  She had made up a piteous story, and her adoring mother had listened and contrived to deny herself and some of Rosalind’s younger sisters to purchase the white robe on which the young girl’s heart was set.

Deliberately and slowly Rosalind made her toilet, her golden, curling hair was brushed out and then carefully coiled round her head.  Rosalind had no trouble with her hair:  a touch or two, a pin stuck here, a curl arranged there, and the arrangement became perfect—­ the glistening mass lay in natural waves over the small, graceful head.

Rosalind’s hair arranged to her satisfaction, she put on her lovely white dress.  She stood before her long glass, a white-robed little figure, smiles round her lips, a sweet, bright color in her cheeks, a dewy look in her baby-blue eyes.  Rosalind’s toilet was all but finished; she stood before her glass now and hesitated.  Should she go to the Elliot-Smiths’ as she was or should she give the last finishing touch to render herself perfect?  Should she wear her beautiful coral ornaments?

The coral was now her own, paid for to the uttermost farthing; Polly Singleton could not come up to Rosalind now and disgrace her in public by demanding her coral back again.  The coral was no longer Polly’s; it was Rosalind’s.  The debt was cleared off; the exquisite ornaments were her own.  Unlocking a drawer in her bureau, she took out a case, which contained her treasures; she touched the spring of the case, opened it and looked at them lovingly.  The necklace, the bracelets, the earings and pins for the hair looked beautiful on their velvet pillow.  For the sake of the pink coral, Rosalind had manoeuvred for her white dress; for its sake she had knowingly stinted her mother and sisters; for its sake she had also stolen a five-pound note from Maggie Oliphant.  She dreamt many times of the triumphs which would be hers when she appeared at the Elliot-Smiths’ in her white silk dress, just tipped with the slight color which the pink coral ornaments would bestow.  Rosalind had likened herself to all kinds of lovely things in this beautiful yet simple toilet—­ to a daisy in the field, to a briar rose:  in short, to every flower which denoted the perfection of baby innocence.