Her lips and cheeks were painted. What a difference it made in her. She used to be a pretty girl with lovely golden, curly hair, and now it was all cut off, close, like a boy’s. That might be pretty on some people, perhaps, but Isabel looked too big and old for it.

Marion’s pale cheeks were flushed now, and her tired eyes bright with distress. She had never had quite such an experience as this, being turned down by an old schoolmate. One who had been under obligation to her, too, in the old days. What was the trouble? Wasn’t she dressed right?

She glanced down at her plain brown dress, made in the fashion of two years ago. It was still fresh and good, but of course the fashion was behind the times. Why hadn’t she realized that she needed to furbish up her wardrobe before going out into the world? She must attend to that before she went anywhere, even to church again. But what kind of people were they all to look down on an old acquaintance just because she was oddly dressed? She had been shut away from the world so long that she had gotten far away from the sense of worldliness. How odd it was that just dress made so much difference. And what a silly she was. Was she going to cry right there in the church before all those people? Oh, Jennie and Tom had been all wrong! She was not fit to go out anywhere. She was all tired out and needed to stay at home and rest and just be quiet.

She was edging her way through the merry crowds toward the church kitchen now, hoping to make her excuses and get away, when the minister loomed in her way and greeted her with a royal smile, and his wife put a comforting arm around her and began talking in a low tone, saying dear things about her father, telling her just how she had felt when her father was taken away. The tight lines of suffering around Marion’s delicate lips relaxed a little, and she began to look almost happy. Then with a swoop Mrs. Shuttle, the chairman of the entertainment committee, arrived.

“Well, here you are at last, Marion Warren!” she exclaimed in a loud voice that made Marion shrink. “We’ve been looking all over the place for you. We want you terribly in the kitchen right away. The woman we hired to wash dishes hasn’t come yet. She’s always late nowadays. She’s got a little baby and can’t leave early, and we find the Christian Endeavor used the glasses and ice-cream plates at their last social and just left them in the closet dirty! Isn’t that the limit? Something ought to be done about that. And see, we’re almost ready to serve and not enough ice-cream plates or glasses. You wouldn’t mind washing a few for us, would you, Marion? I told them I thought you wouldn’t. We’re almost wild back there in the kitchen. Come on!”

So Marion vanished into the kitchen and was presently established at the church sink washing dishes. Of course she could wash dishes. She had done that all her life. It was much less embarrassing than being out there in the other room being made to feel as if she came out of the ark. Yes, she was glad to wash dishes.