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
