"I'm not goin' to have her down there with her clothes
on any which way, an' everybody making remarks. Take your sacque off,
Lucretia."
"Oh, I got the bow on straight; it's real straight, it is, _honest_,"
pleaded young Lucretia, piteously. She clutched the plaid shawl tightly
together, but it was of no use--off the things had to come. And young
Lucretia had put on the prim whaleboned basque of her best dress wrong
side before; she had buttoned it in the back. There she stood, very much
askew and uncomfortable about the shoulder seams and sleeves, and hung
her head before her aunts.
"Lucretia Raymond, what _do_ you mean, putting your dress on this way?"
"All--the other--girls--wear--theirs buttoned in--the back."
"All the other girls! Well, you're not going to have yours buttoned in
the back, and wear holes through that nice ladies' cloth coat every time
you lean back against a chair. I should think you were crazy. I've a
good mind not to let you go out at all. Stand round here!"
Young Lucretia's basque was sharply unbuttoned, she was jerked out of
it, and it was turned around and fastened as it was meant to be. When
she was finally started, with her aunts' parting admonition echoing
after her, she felt sad and doubtful, but soon her merry disposition
asserted itself.
There was no jollier and more radiant little soul than she all through
the opening exercises.
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