Jinnie turned around and around with slow precision as Mrs. Grandoken ascertained the correct hanging of the skirt. When the last stitches had been put in, and the dress lay in all its gorgeous splendor across the chair, Peg coughed awkwardly and spoke of shoes.
"You can't wear them cowhides with lace," said she.
"I might make a pair if I had a day and the stuff," suggested Lafe, looking around helplessly.
"Ain't time," replied Peg. And of course it was she who gave Jinnie some money taken from a small bag around her neck and ordered her to the shop for shoes.
"She ought to have a fiddle box," Lafe suggested.
"There ain't 'nough money in the house for that," replied Peg--"but I'll give her a piece of the curtains to wrap it up in."
"That'll look better'n a box," smiled Lafe. "I'm a happy cobbler, I am."
When Jinnie returned with a pair of low black slippers, no one noticed that they weren't quite what should have been worn with a lace frock. Contentment reigned supreme in the Grandoken home that day.
Sunday evening at seven Jinnie displayed herself to Lafe. The cobbler gave a contented nod.
"You and the dress're beautiful," he ruminated. "Wonderful!... Kiss me, Jinnie!"
She not only kissed Lafe, but Bobbie, Happy Pete, and Milly Ann, too, came in for their share. Peg looked so sour, so forbidding, that Jinnie only faltered,
"Much obliged, Peggy darling.... Oh, I'm so happy!" She stood directly in front of Mrs. Grandoken. "Aren't you, dear?" she besought.
"We're all glad, lass," put in the cobbler.
Jinnie's blue, blue eyes were seeking approbation from the gaunt, frowning woman.
"None of you've got the sense of my bedpost," snapped Peg, sniffing the air. "Get along. They're waitin' for you."
Jinnie arrived in great excitement at Theodore King's door. She stumbled up the stone steps of the mansion with the fiddle carefully wrapped under her arm.
"Is Mr. King here?" she asked of the maid, hesitatingly.
She stood very still, scarcely breathing, until they called the master of the house, and as Theodore's eyes fell upon the lace dress, with its red and yellow roses and green vines running the length of the slim young figure, he smoothed away a smile that forced itself to his lips.
Out of gratitude to Peggy, Jinnie felt she ought to speak of the frock, so with an admiring glance downward, she confided: