"And I am sure Belle Brockenborough will love to do the other," said Polly. "She hasn't a thing on earth to do. I'll ask her to come and stay a week with me and we can sew and chatter and have a good time. Anybody would love to work on such beautiful goods as these."
"Oh, you dear," cried Nan. "I just knew if anybody could help us, it would be Cousin Polly. Aren't we beautifully supplied with everything?"
"Oh, I forgot slippers. I wish we could go in our stocking feet and show off our silk stockings."
"We'll manage slippers somehow," said Polly. "I am sure you can wear mine."
"But you have such little feet," said Nan.
"So have you, and I have one pair a little too large for me, that you are quite welcome to if the others are too small."
In due course of time, all were provided for. The "little too large" pair of slippers exactly fitted Nan. Jean's would do very well as they were. A pair of Mary Lee's which she had grown out of it was found Jack had grown into, and for Mary Lee, Nan's ingenuity at last came to the rescue, for a pair of discolored white kid slippers which had once been her mother's, Nan suggested should be painted blue to match her sister's frock.
The boys wondered at the sudden interest taken in Betty Wise's party, for nothing else was talked of for a week. "You didn't say a word about it at first," said Ran. "What makes you all so wild about it all of a sudden?"
"Oh, we didn't know what we were going to wear," Nan remarked nonchalantly, and the others giggled.
However, they could not keep the presents a secret, as Phil knew about them, and finally Nan told Ran the whole story, ending with: "We're just like girls in a book, aren't we?"
"You're the nicest girl in a book or out of it," returned Ran, gallantly. "I'm going to the party with you, Nan, and I want you to dance with me a lot."
"All right," said Nan, delighted at the compliment and pleased at the thought that she and her sisters would not be outdone by any of the girls in matters of dress or attention.
The last stitch was set the day before the party, and in full regalia the four sisters went to display themselves to their grandmother. There was a little embarrassment as Mary Lee came forward and Nan said: "This is Mary Lee, grandmother."