"What is it like?"

"Oh, I can't begin to describe it. It is altogether novel. I wish
now I had asked her to let me bring it home to show it to you."

"I wish you had. You must go there again and get it for me."

"I believe I will call in again to-morrow.--Perhaps she will have
thought better of it by that time, and changed her mind. At any
rate, if not, I will ask her to let me bring it home and show it to
you."

This was done. Mrs. Bates did not object to letting Mrs. Tarleton
take the head-dress and show it to her sister, for she had the
fullest confidence that she would not do anything with it that she
knew was against her wishes, which had been clearly expressed.

The sister of Mrs. Tarleton was in raptures with the head-dress.

"It is right down mean and selfish in Mrs. Bates not to let you have
the pattern," she said. "What a vain woman she must be. I always
thought better of her."

"So did I. But this shows what she is."

"If I were you," remarked the sister, "I would have it in spite of
her. It isn't _her_ pattern, that she need pretend hold it so
exclusively. It is a Paris fashion, and any body else may get it
just as well as she. She has no property in it."

"No, of course not."

"Then while you have the chance, take it to Madame Pinto and get her
to make you one exactly like it."

"I have a great mind to do it; it would serve her perfectly right."

"I wouldn't hesitate a moment," urged the sister. "At the last
party, Mrs. Bates managed to have on something new that attracted
every one and threw others into the shade, I wouldn't let her have
another such triumph."

Thus urged by her sister, Mrs. Tarleton yielded to the evil counsel,
which was seconded by her own heart. The head-dress was taken to
Madame Pinto, who, after a careful examination of it, said that she
would make one exactly similar for Mrs. Tarleton. After charging the
milliner over and over again to keep the matter a profound secret,
Mrs. Tarleton went away and returned the head-dress to Mrs. Bates.
It had been in her possession only a couple of hours.

Mrs. Pinto was a fashionable milliner and dress maker, and was
patronized by the most fashionable people in the city, Mrs. Bates
among the rest. The latter had called in the aid of this woman in
the preparation of various little matters of dress to be worn at the
party. Three or four days after Mrs. Tarleton's visit to Mrs. Pinto
with the head-dress, Mrs. Bates happened to step