THE STRIPED DRESS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 23

THE STRIPED DRESS

Lady Belinda seldom rode in a bus, because she had two cars doing nothing else but wait to perform this service for her; but to-day her chauffeur was ill. and she had stepped from her dressmaker’s meaning to hail a taxi to get her home. However, no taxi passed, but a huge red bus pulled up at her feet, so she stepped inside. She was thinking about a dress she had just tried on. It reminded her of one, a red striped dress, she had once had. She had liked it so much that she had worn it much longer than she usually wore her dresses, until she had finally sent it to a charitable institution begging for “cast offs.” With her mind still full of the dress Lady Belinda looked up. A tall, thin woman had got in and sat down opposite. Her coat was unbuttoned and her dress —it couldn’t be! But it was! Her old striped gown! How amazing! It must have reached the woman through the institution to which Lady Belinda had sent it. The bus stopped and the striped dress got off, and, without quite knowing why she did it, the original owner got off too.

Down a small side street the dress went, turning in at a shabby doorway. The windows of the house had cheap lace curtains, and when a light came from inside it showed a poorly furnished room. Lady Belinda stood spellbound. It almost seemed that a little bit of herself was moving in that room.

The woman began to take off the dress. Then she paused and drew the blinds. Barely a minute or two had passed when out she came again, carrying a clumsy parcel. She evidently had not had enough paper, for bits of red striped material were sticking out. Fascinated, Lady Belinda, followed the woman till she stopped at a secondhand clothes shop, into which she vanished, a few moments later coming out again—without the parcel. Lady Belinda went into tho little shop, and inquired the price of that striped dress. ‘‘Ten shillings,” she was told. Ten shillings! Lady Belinda thought of the dressmaker's bill. “I will buy it,” she said. The dress was repacked and Lady Belinda went down the street again to the shabby door, into which the tall, thin figure was just entering. “Could I speak to you?” asked Lady Belinda. “Oh, please come in,” was the surprised answer, and Lady Be’ Inda followed. “I have taken the liberty.” she said, "of bringing you a small present.” When the parcel was opened the woman looked so surprised that she could hardly speak, and so Lady Belinda began to explain. “I sold it,” explained the woman, in her turn, “to buy food for my husband. He is out looking for work.” Lady Belinda did not leave before she had placed on the table another small present, a paper one this time, and a promise of help that made such a difference to the poor woman’s tired face that when he came home her husband hardly recognised her.