"
"Why, Walter!" Mrs. Adams cried, much pleased. "Do you know how
to get a cab for that little? How splendid!"
"Tain't a cab," Walter informed her crossly. "It's a tin Lizzie,
but you don't haf' to tell her what it is till I get her into it,
do you?"
Mrs. Adams agreed that she didn't.
CHAPTER VI
Alice was busy with herself for two hours after dinner; but a
little before nine o'clock she stood in front of her long mirror,
completed, bright-eyed and solemn. Her hair, exquisitely
arranged, gave all she asked of it; what artificialities in
colour she had used upon her face were only bits of emphasis that
made her prettiness the more distinct; and the dress, not rumpled
by her mother's careful hours of work, was a white cloud of
loveliness. Finally there were two triumphant bouquets of
violets, each with the stems wrapped in tin-foil shrouded by a
bow of purple chiffon; and one bouquet she wore at her waist and
the other she carried in her hand.
Miss Perry, called in by a rapturous mother for the free treat of
a look at this radiance, insisted that Alice was a vision.
"Purely and simply a vision!" she said, meaning that no other
definition whatever would satisfy her. "I never saw anybody look
a vision if she don't look one to-night," the admiring nurse
declared.
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