ffon muff and a plumed hat. Oh! if
he had been allowed to do such shopping for Mary! how quickly he would
have entered into the lists of bidders! Mary's eyes were just that
heavenly shade of blue, but Mary's pride was as great as her poverty,
and the time when he could shower his now useless wealth upon her was
not yet. And then his loyal memory told him that Edith was blue-eyed
like all the Sedyards and he knew that his sister's Christmas gifts
stood before him. He failed, however, to discern in the bland presence
of the lay figure, upon which they were disposed to such advantage, the
companion of one of the most varied adventures in his long career.

The chiffon finery was rather too much for the Fourteenth Street
audience. The bidding languished. The auctioneer's pleadings fell upon
deaf ears. In vain his assistant, a deft-fingered man with a beard,
twirled the waxen-faced figure to show the "semi-princesse back" and the
"near-Empire front." Corn-blue chiffon and panne velvet are not much
worn in Fourteenth Street. The auctioneer grew desperate. "Twenty-five
dollars," he repeated with such scorn that the timid woman who had made
the bid wished herself at home and in bed. "_Twenty-five_ dollars!"

"Throw in the girl, why don't you?" suggested a facetious youth, chiefly
remarkable for a nose, a necktie and a diamond ring. "She's a peach all
right, all right. She's got a smile that won't come off."

"All right, I'll throw her in," cried the desperate auctioneer. "What am
I bid for this here afternoon costume complete with lady."

"Twenty-seven fifty," said a woman whom three years of banting would
still have left too fat to get into it.

"Twenty-eight," whispered the first bidder.

"Thirty," said John Sedyard.

There was some other desultory bidding but in a few moments Sedyard
found himself minus fifty-four dollars and plus a chiffon gown and
muff, a hat all drooping plumes and a graceful female form,
golden-haired, bewitching, with a smile sweetly blended of surprise,
incipient idiocy and allure.

"She's a queen all right, all right," the sophisticated youth cheered
him. "Git onto them lovely wax-like hands. Say, you know honest, on the
level, she's worth the whole price of admission."

John, still chaperoned by this sagacious and helpful youth, made his way
to the clerk's desk and proceeded to give his name and address and
request that his purchases should be delivered in the morning.

"Deliver nothin'," s