"I think they're lovely," Rose said, "especially the yellow. It would be just perfect with my coloring. The blue would probably be more to your liking. It's a little more plain, less frilly."

Fern looked at the blue, but her gaze turned back to the yellow dress. "Which one would you wear to a party?" Fern asked.

"The yellow. The blue dress is meant to be worn at home or when visiting friends."

"Then I guess I'd better try on the yellow dress first."

Fern knew wearing that dress wouldn't be the answer to anything. It would probably cause more problems than it would solve, but she didn't care. She wanted to go to the party, and she wanted to go in that dress.

But it wasn't that simple. If she went to the party, she doubted she could ever go back to the life she had led before Madison got off that train. Fern resolutely closed her mind to the consequences. If she didn't, she wouldn't have the courage to go through with it.

All her life she had lived with fear, letting it dictate everything she did. Today she would cast caution to the winds. She would wear this dress, she would look as beautiful as she could, she would go to the party, she would dance all night even though she had no idea how to dance.

Very soon Madison would go away and there would be nothing left of her dreams. She had no choice but to accept that, but she would have this moment, this one last chance to unfurl her wings and fly toward the sun with all the other b.u.t.terflies. Just once in her life she would pretend she was just like any other woman, that she had the same chance for love. Just this once she would ignore reality, defy reason, thumb her nose at the sensible.

She would fly as high and as long as she could. It didn't matter if she singed her wings and plunged to earth. After tomorrow, n.o.body would see her again. Tomorrow she would move out to the ranch. Tomorrow she would put Madison Randolph out of her mind forever.

Only he would remain in her heart until she died.

"Strip down to your skin," Rose ordered. "I'll see if I can find a shift that will fit you."

"What for?" Fern asked. "I can put the dress on over my own underclothes."

"You can't try on a dress like you would a pair of shoes," Rose said. "You have to prepare yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see."

For the next half hour Fern allowed herself to be pushed and pulled, prodded and poked, discussed and argued over. Rose and Mrs. Abbott discussed styles and lengths of hair, lamenting that Fern had allowed her luxurious locks to become so dry and brittle. Mrs. Abbott virtually went into mourning over Fern's skin.

"I've seen better on a man," she wailed. "Don't you ever put cream on at night?"

"Papa would have taken a stick to me if he'd ever caught me putting grease on my face."

"Cream," Mrs. Abbott corrected. "Grease is for boots. And look at her shouldersnot that they aren't much better than I thought, but her shoulders and arms are white as a sheet while her neck and hands are brown as an Indian. Where will you ever find a dress to cover her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes?"

Fern's self-confidence hadn't been very high, but Mrs. Abbott's strictures caused it to take a nosedive.

"It's not that bad," Rose said, "but we will have to improvise a high collar and long sleeves. Let's hope it's a cool night."

"It's never cool in July, not even at night," Mrs. Abbott told her. "Well, there's nothing I can do about the weather, but I can do something about this skin," Rose said. She took a jar from the table, touched her fingertips to the white contents, and gently ma.s.saged it into Fern's skin.

"It's disappeared already," Mrs. Abbott exclaimed. "Her skin's as dry as paper."

"I've got a big pot of cream," Rose said, dipping into the jar once more.

Fern let them rub and ma.s.sage. She knew it wouldn't make any difference. Even the paint the girls down at the Pearl Saloon wore couldn't make her beautiful.

"Now we've got to do something with her hair."

"What?" Mrs. Abbott demanded. "It's like trying to comb a bristle brush."

"We've got to wash it first," Rose said. "Probably half the Kansas prairie is hidden in there."

"I wash my hair regularly," Fern protested.

"I was just kidding," Rose said. "One day in the Texas brush and everything needs washing."

Fern wasn't mollified by the tacit apology, but she meekly submitted to having her hair washed. Somewhere during the oil treatment she lost herself in a daydream. She was dressed in the yellow dress and surrounded by men clamoring for a chance to talk to her, telling her she was beautiful, wanting to dance with her, to bring her something to eat or drink, to escort her home, to take her for a ride.

Before she could decide how to distribute her favors, Madison appeared on the scene. Sweeping everyone aside, he took her into his arms and engulfed her in his embrace. Deaf to the shocked exclamations around him, he pressed his body against hers until she thought she would burst into flame from the heat. ''I don't think we ought to do any more than trim the ends," Rose was saying.

"I think we ought to cut it short and curl it."

"No!" Fern said, horrified at the thought of appearing anywhere in curls. "My hair has never been cut."

"What do you think about wearing it in an elegant chignon on the nape of your neck?" Rose asked. "Or you could wear it on top of your head."

"She'd be the tallest person at the party," Mrs. Abbott objected.

Fern didn't care what they did as long as they left her hair untouched. She'd kept her hair long despite all the trouble it caused her. Her mother's hair had been long, and Fern had always wanted to be like her mother.

"It's a shame we can't show your shoulders," Rose said, "but your skin will improve if you stay out of the sun."

"Not by tonight," Mrs. Abbott said.

"No, not by tonight," Rose said with a sigh. "But I think I have a bolero jacket she can wear."

Fern had lunch in her room while her hair dried. Rose visited with George and William Henry.

Fern decided that if being turned into a beauty meant having her hair washed all the time, her skin rubbed with oil until she felt like a greased pig, and dresses, jackets, and shifts by the dozen pulled over her head, young ladies like Samantha Bruce were much to be pitied. The waiting was awful. And boring. She was used to being active, being outside, giving orders, yet all morning long she'd sat in the same chair, never leaving her room, and agreeing to everything Rose said.

"What's that thing?" Fern asked when Rose and Mrs. Abbott returned after lunch.

"It's a corset," Rose said of the garment in her hands. "You put it on before you put on the dress."

"You're not putting that thing on me," Fern said, backing away from the stiff garment. She had heard about corsets. She had seen them on the girls at Pearl's. Sometimes a corset was about all they had on.

"It won't have to be tight," Rose said. "You're already very slim."

"I'm not putting it on," Rose said.

"You can't wear the dress without it."

"No." Fern eyed the corset as though it were some malevolent beast. She thought it was a barbaric contraption, the kind of thing Madison would have said had been thought up in Kansas.

"I'll hold her down while you slap it on her," Mrs. Abbott offered.

"No," Rose said. "She has to wear it because she wants to. It won't work any other way."

"Are you wearing one of these things?" Fern demanded of Rose.

"In her condition?" Mrs. Abbott exclaimed. "I should say not."

"I would if it would keep me from looking big enough to be two women," Rose said.

"But you will after the baby is born?"

"Every woman wears a corset," Rose told her with a sigh of resignation. "It's part of being properly dressed."

If you're going to this party, you can't do things by half measures. Samantha Bruce is bound to wear a corset. You've got to wear one too.

It wasn't as bad as Fern had feared. It wasn't the tightness that bothered her. It was feeling as if she couldn't bend in the middle. She doubted she could mount a horse in this rig. She knew she'd never be able to brand a cow. She wasn't even sure she could take a deep breath. "I think it's time to do your hair," Rose said. "It's going to take quite a while to pin it all up."

"By the time we're done, she'll be ready to cut some of it off," Mrs. Abbott proclaimed.

Fern didn't think she could stand to sit still long enough for them to do her hair, but she knew she wasn't going to let anybody cut it.

"That's not half bad," Mrs. Abbott said when they had shoved what Fern was certain were at least a hundred pins into her hair.

"Actually it's quite good," Rose said. "Much better than I had hoped for."

"Let me see," Fern said.

"Not until we get you in the dress," Rose said. I don't want you to see anything until you're completely done."

The last several hours had seemed long and tedious and, most of the time, boring and lacking any excitement. Fern had had to keep reminding herself the ordeal was necessary to getting dressed for a party, necessary because of Madison.

Putting on the dress was different. All the drama of the day was now distilled into a few minutes. Any moment now the transformation would be complete.

Nothing bored her any longer. She could feel the same excited expectation she imagined every woman feels when she dresses up, when she is about to see herself revealed as something more glorious than she had supposed.

She silently endured the fitting of the dress, the tugs and pulls to settle it into place. The fit was so perfect the dress might have been bought for her. She also endured the questions of whether to wear the jacket or a shawl to hide her shoulders. They settled on a jacket. She even managed to endure the discussion of jewelry and Rose and Mrs. Abbott trying several combinations before they were satisfied.

But when they started to discuss whether she would wear flowers in her hair, and if so, what kind, she could stand it no longer.

"I've got to see what I look like," she said, fidgeting with impatience.

I still say flowers would give just the right touch," Mrs. Abbott insisted. "Besides, her complexion might not look so rough."

"There's nothing any flower can do for my face," Fern stated. "It's always looked like old leather, and it's going to keep on looking like that. Now let me see what I look like."

"I guess we have kept you waiting long enough," Rose said. She took the mirror and held it up for Fern to see.

Fern could hardly believe she was looking at herself. She wasn't beautiful, she never would be, but there wasn't a bulldog calf in all of Kansas that looked as pretty as she did right now.

But the biggest shock was that she didn't look anything like herself. That wasn't Fern Sproull. She might as well be looking at a stranger, someone n.o.body in Abilene had seen before.

"You like it?" Mrs. Abbott asked, more impatient than Rose with Fern's silence.

"I don't look like me."

"I should think that would make you happy," Mrs. Abbott said, causing Rose to frown at her quite severely.

"I guess it does," Fern said, "but it's strange to look at yourself and see someone else. It's almost as if I don't exist anymore."

"It's another side of you," Rose said. "It's always been there. You've just been hiding it."

"It's just as well," Fern said, hardly knowing what to say. "What would I do with her on the farm?" she said, pointing at the woman in the mirror. She was talking as if there were two of her. She felt like two people. Surely this other woman would be completely different, would feel and act unlike herself. That made Fern feel uneasy. Madison had already introduced too many uncertainties into her life. She wasn't sure she could handle any more.

"You'll learn," Rose said. "It's not always easy, but we all learn."

But Fern wasn't sure she wanted to. It had taken years to become comfortable with herself. Now she knew what was expected of her. Everyone knew what she expected of them. She had no idea what to do with the woman in the mirror. But worse than that, she was afraid of what other people might expect of her. She was most afraid of what she might expect of herself.

Fern felt sick with apprehension. Despite the evidence of her own eyes, as well as Rose's and Mrs. Abbott's a.s.surances that she looked lovely, she was petrified of what Madison would think. He'd never seen her in a dress. If he was telling the truth and didn't love Samantha, he might not love her now that she neither looked like herself nor was half as pretty as Samantha.

"Stop chewing your nails," Rose said. "You look lovely."

"I'm not chewing my nails. I can't even find them." Fern wore mittens, something else that made her uncomfortable.

"Well, you are biting your lips. If you don't stop, they'll be swollen twice their size before Madison gets here."

"I thought men liked women to have generous lips." "Maybe, but I doubt they like the taste of blood on them." George came into the room. "Tell her she looks nice," Rose directed her husband.

Fern made herself smile for George, but it didn't matter what George thought. It only mattered that Madison like her. She couldn't go to the party if he was ashamed of her. Neither could she stay home, not after all the work Rose and Mrs. Abbott had done.

"You look very lovely," George a.s.sured her. I have to confess I didn't expect you to be so pretty. You've done yourself, and the men of Abilene, a grave injustice by dressing in pants all these years.

"See, I told you," Rose said, smiling, needing no one's approbation except her husband's to make her happy. "Now as soon as I can find William Henry to say good-bye, I'll be ready to go."

Mrs. Abbott came in with William Henry dressed for bed. He dutifully kissed his mother and father.

"Where is Fern?" the little boy asked when he emerged from his mother's embrace. I want to kiss her good night, too."

"That's Fern," his mother said.

"You can't fool me," he said, laughing happily because he thought his parents were trying to trick him and had failed. "Fern wears pants like me and Daddy."

"You don't recognize her because she's wearing a dress," Rose said.

Fern knelt down until she was face to face with the child. "I'm just dressed up so .1 can go to a party. Do I look so very different?"

William Henry didn't look convinced. Fern felt panic. If the child didn't recognize her, what would Madison think? It would be like coming face to face with a stranger, and Madison wasn't a man to take quickly to strangers. What's more, he hated being surprised.

"You don't look like Fern," William Henry said.

"But I am," Fern a.s.sured him, tears starting to gather in her eyes. "I just got dressed up so I could go to the party with your Uncle Madison."