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If her father noticed the absence of the letter she had slipped

fro about it as he drew the paper and

letters forth and laid theoing on, she was sure he hesitated an

instant and looked closely at the letters he sorted; but when he

said nothing, she breathed deeply in relief and went on being

joyous It seeood-natured state since Adaatha and her three

hundred acres with house, furniture, and stock She went on in

ignorance of what had happened until after Sunday dinner the

following day Then she had planned to visit Agatha and Ada for this

visit that Nancy Ellen decided on Kate's enlighten that her sister was al As she stood brushing her wealth of

gold with full-length sweeps of her ar thewaves and pinning up loose braids Her hair was

beautiful and she slowly se as she tried

different effects of wave, loose curl, braids high piled or flat

Across her bed lay a dress that was a reproduction of one that she

had worn for three years, but a glorified reproduction The

original dress had been Nancy Ellen's first departure froham which her mother always had purchased

because it would ell, and when fro it

faded to an exact dirt colour it had the advantage of providing a

background that did not show the dirt Nancy Ellen had earned the

turkeys, so when the turkeys went

to town to be sold, for the first ti to select the dress No one told her what kind of

dress to get, because no one i variation from what always had been provided for her

But Nancy Ellen had stood facing a narrow ha one look at her fresh,

beautiful face with its sharp contrasts of black eyes and hair,

rose-tinted skin that refused to tan, and red cheeks and lips,

began shaking out delicate blues, pale pinks, golden yellows He

called them chambray; insisted that they wore for ever, and were

fadeless, which was practically the truth On the day that dress

was like to burst its waist seams, it was the same waruration of dirt-brown