Nurse Trent's Children by Joyce Dingwell

dresses and let her choose her own style.”
    “Oh, that would please Rita tremendously. There’s another thing I’ve been thinking. Lipstick. Only for Saturdays and holidays, of course, but I’d be very much surprised if Rita weren’t the only girl in her class at the commercial school who hasn’t her own lipstick and her own small compact of powder.”
    Elvira looked dubious, and Cathy hastened to defend her cause. “I know you don’t use it, Elvira .”
    “Couldn’t make any difference to me.”
    “But most girls do, and I don’t see why Rita should be deprived. If we don’t openly allow her, she’ll only secretly save up her pennies and buy a small cheap stick, probably a ghastly shade, and then the other children will laugh and we’ll have a new problem on our hands.”
    When Elv i ra did not speak Cathy wondered if this was one time when the kindly person was not in agreement. She soon learned otherwise.
    “I’m all for it, Aunty Cathy, though there might be difficulties ... ”
    “How, Elvira?”
    “Well, things like embroidery can always be hidden away, but lipstick shows.”
    “Of course. It’s expected to.”
    “If Rita could be told only to wear it when, well, when nobody sees it ...”
    “Elvira, what are you trying to say? What does it matter who sees it? It will be paid for. I shall have paid for it. I’ve intended to buy Rita lipstick ever since I came here. Then in a few months it will be Janet’s turn, then Gwenda’s. I want to take each girl with me and have the cosmetics consultant choose her the right color—a fresh pink, I should think, or a clear red—and tell her how to blend it in. And I shall insist on a good case so she can buy refills. Oh, it will be a lesson on values as well as a first lipstick,” and Cathy laughed in youthful anticipation.
    Elvira, however, was not laughing. “You don’t understand. With the embroidery, no one knew. With the lipstick they’d have to know. I mean the board would know, Aunty Cathy.”
    Cathy was thinking quickly of all the board members she had already met. Old Mr. Grant and Colonel Manning and Miss Marriott would have no objection, she was sure. The Reverend Mr. Flett would probably compliment Rita on her appearance, while his wife, if they happened to meet her, would undoubtedly join in the important purchase.
    “ Of course they would know,” she said reasonably. “We were not intending trying to conceal it. So long as it is my expense and not the board’s I can’t see how it would matter. These days there could be no objection surely to a girl of almost sixteen occasionally wearing a discreet coat of lipstick.”
    Elvira said coaxingly, “Maybe, but all the same, couldn’t you tell Rita only to put it o n when ... that is...”
    “No,” said Cathy firmly, “I couldn’t. I don’t intend making a clandestine thing of it, Elvira. All along I intended asking first.”
    “I guessed that,” said Elvira gloomily. “You know whom you’ll ask, don’t you? The women members generally attend to the girls ... ”
    “Naturally.”
    “And that will mean permission from Mrs. Dubois. Fayette Dubois is the final word among the women; in fact, she’s the final word with the entire board.”
    “Well? Well, Elvira?”
    Elvira did not answer. She inserted a sheet in the machine and treadled stolidly for a long line of hem. Her concentration was anything but encouraging, and with a sigh Cathy took up a pillow slip and began to patch.
    Of course Mrs. Dubois won’t refuse permission, she thought, she’s only human. She mustn’t refuse it. It sounds trivial, but it’s really quite important. It’s important to Rita. It’s more than just a first lipstick, it’s in its way an issue.
    “Elvira,” she said above the machine’s whirr, “Rita asked me if she could have this lipstick.”
    “Oh, dear,” said Elvira, stopping abruptly. “ That’s bad.”
    That night they received the news that the boys would be arriving in the