ss. How did she come
to take to it naturally? She did not seem to feel embarrassed, and how
lovely the room looked with the lights and the still hanging Christmas
greens.

When Zaidee came in to wish her mother good-night, she did indeed look
like a fairy being. Her frock was some soft, diaphanous stuff over a
pale green slip, some of her curls were tied up high on her head and the
ribbon and that of her sash matched. Three strings of pearl beads were
about her white throat. Marguerite smiled to herself--Miss Nevins would
call that very poor party attire.

"Don't stay late," Major Crawford said to his son.

"Oh, we couldn't," declared Zay laughing. "It's a school girls' 'Small
and early.' We begin at eight and the musicians depart at ten and we go
to refreshments, and by eleven,

"'The lights are fled the music dead,
And all of us departed.'"

"That is just as it should be," declared aunt Kate, "if you wish to keep
roses and bright eyes for pleasure later on."

Zay kissed her parents. Marguerite was sitting a little out of range,
but Willard bent over and gave her a tender good-night. Then aunt Kate
wrapped her niece in a lovely evening cloak trimmed with white fox and
drew the hood up carefully, and the carriage soon whisked them to their
destination.

"Oh, how beautiful she looks!" Marguerite exclaimed involuntarily.

The mother smiled tenderly.

"Zaidee has grown up with her beauty," said the father. "I used to be
afraid aunt Kate would spoil her and lead her to think beauty was the
great thing to strive for, but she takes it as a matter of course. I
hope she will be as indifferent about it when she is grown to womanhood,
for nothing destroys the charm like that ultraconsciousness and the bid
for admiration. So many things beside beauty of feature go to make up
the charm of an interesting woman."

She must be interesting, Marguerite thought. There were so many
delightful qualities one could cultivate. Mrs. Barrington was charming,
and Miss Arran had so many nice quiet ways, that she had insensibly
copied; her low toned voice, her never seeming to hurry and yet going
about any matter as if it was the first thing to be done; her little
orderly methods. She kept her mother's room neat, she put the books back
in their places; there was a cluster of autumn leaves in a vase, or a
sprig of spruce or cedar that for a long while would put forth new
leaves. She was very glad now that she had taken so much