With the cunning of her kind Lizzie dressed herself in her best; a soiled pink silk shirtwaist with elbow sleeves, a spotted and torn black skirt that showed a tattered orange silk petticoat beneath its ungainly length, a wide white hat with soiled and draggled willow plume of Alice blue, and high-heeled pumps run over on their uppers. If she had but known it she looked ten times better in the old Madonna shawl she had worn to Michael's office, but she took great satisfaction in being able to dress appropriately when she went to the swells.
The poor baby she wrapped in his soiled little best, and pinned a large untidy pink satin bow on the back of his dirty little blanket. Then she started on her mission.
Now Starr had just heard that her father's vessel would be at the dock in a trifle over an hour and her heart was light and happy. Somehow all her misgivings seemed to flee away, now that he was coming. She flew from one room to another like a wild bird, trilling snatches of song, and looking prettier than ever.
"Aw, the wee sweet bairnie!" murmured the old Scotch nurse. "If only her man will be gude to her!"
There was some special bit of Starr's attire for the evening that had not arrived. She was in a twitter of expectancy about it, to be sure it pleased her, and when she heard the bell she rushed to the head of the stairs and was half-way down to see if it had come, when the servant opened the door to Lizzie and her baby.
One second more and the door would have closed hopelessly on poor Lizzie, for no servant in that house would have thought of admitting such a creature to the presence of their lady a few hours before her wedding; but Starr, poised half-way on the landing, called, "What is it, Graves, some one to see me?"
"But she's not the sort of person--Miss Starr!" protested Graves with the door only open a crack now.
"Never mind, Graves, I'll see her for a minute. I can't deny anyone on my wedding day you know, and father almost safely here. Show her into the little reception room." She smiled a ravishing smile on the devoted Graves, so with many qualms of conscience and misgivings as to what the mistress would say if she found out, Graves ushered Lizzie and her baby to the room indicated and Starr fluttered down to see her. So it was Starr's own doings that Lizzie came into her presence on that eventful afternoon.