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soiled or mussed. Too bad your mother didn’t like it. What is the matter with it? I thought it extremely smart. It seems a pity to give it up when it suits you so well. Don’t you think your mother would get accustomed to it?”
    Marigold’s face flamed, and she wished she had not tried. After all, what a mess she was making of it.
    “Well,” she said firmly, “I don’t want her to have to get used to something she doesn’t like. I want to get what will please her. After all, I only had it out of the shop for a few hours.”
    “And it hasn’t been worn?” asked the woman suspiciously. “We can’t on any account exchange garments that have been worn.”
    “Certainly not!” said Marigold. “And you needn’t bother if you feel that way. I can go elsewhere for what I want.” She lifted her young chin a bit haughtily and turned to go out.
    “Well, wait a moment. I’ll speak to Madame,” said the woman, and then she sailed away to the back of the room, disappearing for a moment.
    Marigold was more perturbed than ever when she saw Madame herself approaching with the saleswoman. But there was a smile on her face as she came up to Marigold.
    “Your
maman
was not please with the gown?” she said pleasantly. “Well, you know, I thought myself, a very little too sophisticate for
ma’m’selle
. It is not quite your type. I would have suggest a more ingenue style, but you seem so please!”
    Marigold colored quickly and looked relieved at the same time.
    “That was it,” she said relieved. “Mother didn’t like the low back. I was afraid of that, but I loved the dress so I hoped to win her over.”
    “Well, that is all right, my dear,” said Madame soothingly. “We do not as usual thing exchange exclusive garments, but you so soon return, and I have only just now receive request by telephone for a gown of same type. You bring it with you?”
    “No, but I can go after it.” She glanced anxiously at her watch. Could she get back to the house, fold it, and return it without being late to school?
    “If you can have here before eleven o’clock—well, yes, I will take back. I think I have customer who will take it.”
    Marigold gave another frightened glance at her watch.
    “I’ll go right back and get it,” she said breathlessly.
    She hurried out of the shop and up the street, fairly flying, her contradictory heart sinking. The dress was gone, her beautiful dress! But she was rid, at least, of the awful burden of self-reproach for having bought it.
    She would not let herself think of anything as she flew back to the house, except the dress and how to fold it safely. She would take a taxi back to the shop so that she would not have to carry the big box in such a hurry. And would her mother be there still to question her?
    Fortunately, Mrs. Brooke was already starting to her work at the library. She stood on the corner waiting for her bus as Marigold came up.
    “Is anything the matter?” she asked anxiously.
    “No,” said Marigold, “I’m just going back for something that I had to have. Are you all right, Mother?”
    “Yes, dear. You won’t forget the telegram?”
    Marigold smiled and shook her head. She was almost too out-of-breath to speak and was glad that the bus pulled up to the curb just then and her mother waved her hand and was gone. Now she could fold that dress without fear of her mother finding out. She wanted the deed to be irrevocably done before her mother knew, because she would surely suspect it was done for her sake and protest. She simply mustn’t find out until it was all over.
    She rushed upstairs and found her mother had covered the dress with the satiny tissue paper, and it hung there like a white ghost, so out of keeping with the plainness of the rest of the room.
    Marigold gave one gasp of sorrow and renunciation, lifted down the papers carefully, and arranged then in the big box that still stood on the little table by her bed. She took down the dress, held it up for a