MANLY DIGNITY arrived at the Marcey's the day that Sara dressed up. The day that Sara dressed up is incorrect, for this game had no end for her. It amused her more than any of the useful or constructive-character-building-toys which she had; it amused her more than dolls and house-keeping; it amused her more than her garden. Sara was more amused by her own looks than by any other thing in the world. Sara dressed up was so usual a sight that Alice hardly looked up from her book when she saw her daughter arrayed in a bright green silk basque, low neck, out of whose voluminous top Sara's blue-rompered shoulders and sleeves emerged appealingly.
For a skirt she trailed a much torn silken table scarf, and underneath this she wore a bustle.
It was a bustle of the most flourishing period, corrugated, pompous and indestructible except by fire. Over Sara's head was thrown what had once been an over-skirt of some white silk tissue. The fact that she wore the bustle in front and had painted a bright red spot on either cheek and further adorned her face with a painted mustache and imperial accentuated the striking qualities of her costume. She held a broken Japanese sunshade above her head at a rakish angle and walked along, proud, conscious, dignified. She had never achieved a better carriage.
Behind her walked Jamie, wearing a yellow bolero jacket. His face was lavishly painted and, so that one might distinguish between the two, Sara had painted upon him a blue mustache, in which he quite fancied himself.
Sara marched up to Alice and stood there, radiant, waiting for approval. It is one of the unwritten covenants that no child, expecting approval, should be reproved.
"I want another one of these," said Sara, patting her bustle. "I want it to wear behind. Then it'll be all the way round. All the way round,"—she gave an ample gesture—"like the pictures you see like the picture of Gran'ma."
"Why don't you wear this one behind?" suggested Alice feebly.
"Because," Sara replied with the perfect logic of childhood, "I couldn't then wear it in front. If I didn't wear it in front, I couldn't see it. But I want it all the way round, like Gran'ma's picture." Again the sweeping gesture of hoop skirts. "Did you wear it all round when you were a little girl?"
"No," said Alice, "that was before my time."
"Did you wear this?" Sara again patted her bustle. No, even that, it seemed, Alice had not worn. She felt that she was losing momentarily in Sara's esteem, so she added, "But your aunt Caroline used to wear them. She wore them behind."
"Then," said Sara, with firmness, "I shall always wear 'em in front. Why didn't you wear it?" she further investigated.
"I wasn't big enough," said Alice, "when they had them."
"I'm big enough," Sara stated superbly, and started off, her parasol held at a regal angle.
She came back again, laid her hand upon her mother's knee and looked up at her with appealing eyes. There was an intensity in her gaze and a quality in her voice that was touching even with the mustache. It was the clown, sorrowing beneath his white face and red painted smile.
"I want"—she began in a quivering tone. Her voice broke. "I want earrings—and a necklace!" This intense quality in her daughter irritated Alice.
"I want to read," she replied rudely.