The Mystery of the Velvet Gown

why-does-this-always-happen-to-me looks, but he nodded agreement.
    “I putted in the raisings all by myself and stirred and stirred till my arm hurted,” Bobby said proudly. “And then I let Reddy lick the spoon.”
    “You what?” Mrs. Belden cried as Mart choked on a mouthful of cookies.
    “But I didn’t put it back in the bowl,” Bobby answered quickly, sensing that he had said the wrong thing.
    At the sound of his name, Reddy, the Beldens’ big Irish setter, came running into the kitchen. Untrained and totally unpredictable, Reddy was hopeless as a hunter or a watchdog, but all the Beldens loved him, especially Bobby.
    “Can Reddy play snow angel, too?” Bobby asked.
    “I don’t think he’ll be able to, Bobby, but he can come out and play snow doggy,” Trixie replied. “You start getting into your snowsuit while I go up and change.”
    “Okey-dokey, Trixie,” Bobby said, already struggling into bulky snow pants.
    Outside, Trixie taught Bobby how to sit down carefully in the snow and then lie back and move his arms up and down to make a snow angel.
    “Yours looks better than mine, Trixie. Mine gets crooked from my elbow,” Bobby complained.
    “You’ll get better at it,” she reassured him. “Just keep practicing.” They continued playing happily until their mother called them in for dinner.
    Peter Belden had just come in from work. He was a bank officer with the First National Bank of Sleepyside. Trixie and Bobby greeted him with cold, snowy kisses.
    Dinner was accompanied by discussions of the freshman class play, the prospect of another heavy snowfall, and, of course, Bobby’s account of making snow angels. Just as they were finishing dessert, the telephone rang.
    “I’ll get it,” Mart said, getting up quickly. “It’s for you, Trixie,” he yelled. “It’s Di.”
    He returned to the dining room. “I swear she must send up smoke signals to her friends, instructing them to call just when she’s supposed to start the dishes,” he grumbled.
    “Now, Mart,” Mrs. Belden said. “She played with Bobby for quite a long time after school while you had time to yourself. I think you and Brian could do the dishes this evening and give Trixie some time to herself.”
    Mart grumbled again, but he knew his mother was right. Trixie smiled appreciatively at her mother as she went to answer the phone.
    “Hi, Di,” Trixie said enthusiastically. “How does your family feel about having a Juliet in their midst?”
    “Mummy and Daddy think it’s wonderful!”
    Di answered. “So wonderful, in fact, that they want me to have a cast party after the last performance. Won’t that be terrific?”
    Trixie agreed that it would be, and for the next fifteen minutes, they discussed plans for the party. “I’m going to call Honey and tell her,” Di finally said. “See you tomorrow on the bus.”
    Trixie hung up the phone and went to help Mart and Brian put the finishing touches on the washing of the dinner dishes.
    “Perfect timing, as usual,” Brian laughed, drying the last plate.
    Remembering their promise to help untrim the Christmas tree, they all went upstairs to the attic and brought down the empty ornament boxes. They were wrapping the delicate glass pieces in tissue when the back doorbell rang.
    “I’ll get it,” Mr. Belden said. He went through the swinging door to the kitchen and returned a moment later. “There is a Miss Wheeler here to see you, Trixie,” he announced formally. “However, she is cleverly disguised as the abominable snowman.”
    Trixie went out to the kitchen to greet her guest and found her struggling to remove her boots. A heavy layer of snow clung to Honey’s hat and coat. Even her eyelashes were iced with a thin layer of snowflakes.
    “My goodness!” Trixie cried. “I thought it had stopped snowing. I’m always glad to see you, Honey, but why did you come out in this weather?”
    “I’ve got something terribly important to tell you,” Honey began. “I tried to call you,” she continued, removing her hat and gloves, “but your line was busy. Then I tried to call Di, but her line was busy, too, so I figured you were talking to each other and I didn’t know how long you would talk. Mother and Daddy went into New York City this afternoon and won’t be back tonight, and Jim had a biology report to do. So Miss Trask said I could walk over to see you, because I wanted someone to talk to, but it wasn’t snowing so hard when I left, and you know how I