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“NEW white dress, is it?” said Mrs. Costello in bland surprise. “Well, my, my, my! You’ll have Dad and me in the poorhouse!”

She had been knitting a pink and white jacket for somebody’s baby, but now she put it into the silk bag on her knee, dropped it on the floor, and with one generous sweep of her big arms gathered Alanna into her lap instead. Alanna was delighted to have at last attracted her mother’s whole attention, after some ten minutes of unregarded whispering in her ear. She settled her thin little person with the conscious pleasure of a petted cat.

“What do you know about that, Dad?” said Mrs. Costello, absently, as she stiffened the big bow over Alanna’s temple into a more erect position. “You and Tess could wear your Christmas procession dresses,” she suggested to the little girl.

Teresa, apparently absorbed until this instant in what the young Costellos never called anything but the “library book,” although that volume changed character and title week after week, now shut it abruptly, came around the reading-table to her mother’s side, and said in a voice full of pained reminder:

“Mother! EVERY ONE will have new white dresses and blue sashes for Superior’s feast!”

“I bet you Superior won’t!” said Jim, frivolously, from the picture-puzzle he and Dan were reconstructing. Alanna laughed joyously, but Teresa looked shocked.

“Mother, ought he say that about Superior?” she asked.

“Jimmy, don’t you be pert about the Sisters,” said his mother, mildly. And suddenly the Mayor’s paper was lowered, and he was looking keenly at his son over his glasses.

“What did you say, Jim?” said he. Jim was instantly smitten scarlet and dumb, but Mrs. Costello hastily explained that it was but a bit of boy’s nonsense, and dismissed it by introducing the subject of the new white dresses.

“Well, well, well! There’s nothing like having two girls in society!” said the Mayor, genially, winding one of Teresa’s curls about his fat finger. “What’s this for, now? Somebody graduating?”

“It’s Mother Superior’s Golden Jubilee,” explained Teresa, “and there will be a reunion of ‘lumnae, and plays by the girls, you know, and duets by the big girls, and needlework by the Spanish girls. And our room and Sister Claudia’s is giving a new chapel window, a dollar a girl, and Sister Ligouri’s room is giving the organ bench.”

“And our room is giving a spear,” said Alanna, uncertainly.

“A spear, darlin’?” wondered her mother. “What would you give that to Superior for?” Jim and Dan looked up expectantly, the Mayor’s mouth twitched. Alanna buried her face in her mother’s neck, where she whispered an explanation.

“Well, of course!” said Mrs. Costello, presently, to the company at large. Her eye held a warning that her oldest sons did not miss. “As she says, ’tis a ball all covered with islands and maps, Dad. A globe, that’s the other name for it!”

“Ah, yes, a spear, to be sure!” assented the Mayor, mildly, and Alanna returned to view.

“But the best of the whole programme is the grandchildren’s part,” volunteered Teresa. “You know, Mother, the girls whose mothers went to Notre Dame are called the ‘grandchildren.’ Alanna and I are, there are twenty-two of us in all. And we are going to have a special march and a special song, and present Superior with a bouquet!”

“And maybe Teresa’s going to present it and say the salutation!” exulted Alanna.

“No, Marg’ret Hammond will,” Teresa corrected her quickly. “Marg’ret’s three months older than me. First they were going to have me, but Marg’ret’s the oldest. And she does it awfully nicely, doesn’t she, Alanna? Sister Celia says it’s really the most important thing of the day. And we all stand round Marg’ret while she does it. And the best of it all is, it’s a surprise for Superior!”

“Not a surprise like Christmas surprises,” amended Alanna, conscientiously. “Superior sort of knows we are doing something, because she hears the girls practising, and she sees us going upstairs to rehearse. But she will p’tend to be surprised.”