upon her hair and fastened
in its place,--the only ornament a young girl could wear for a
headdress,--and presently it was finished, and Inez gave a sigh of
satisfaction at her work, and lightly felt her sister's head here and
there to be sure that all was right. It felt as if soft little birds
were just touching the hair with the tips of their wings as they
fluttered round it. Dolores had no longer any fear of looking ill
dressed in the blaze of light she was to face before long. The dressing
of her hair was the most troublesome part, she knew, and though she
could not have done it herself, she had felt that every touch and turn
had been perfectly skilful.

"What a wonderful creature you are!" she whispered, as Inez bade her
stand up.

"You have beautiful hair," answered the blind girl, "and you are
beautiful in other ways, but to-night you must be the most beautiful of
all the court, for his sake--so that every woman may envy you, and every
man envy him, when they see you talking together. And now we must be
quick, for it has taken a long time, and I hear the soldiers marching
out again to form in the square. That is always just an hour and a half
before the King goes into the hall. Here--this is the front of the
skirt."

"No--it is the back!"

Inez laughed softly, a whispering laugh that Dolores could scarcely
hear.

"It is the front," she said. "You can trust me in the dark. Put your
arms down, and let me slip it over your head so as not to touch your
hair. No---hold your arms down!"

Dolores had instinctively lifted her hands to protect her headdress.
Then all went quickly, the silence only broken by an occasional
whispered word and by the rustle of silk, the long soft sound of the
lacing as Inez drew it through the eyelets of the bodice, the light
tapping of her hands upon the folds and gatherings of the skirt and on
the puffed velvet on the shoulders and elbows.

"You must be beautiful, perfectly beautiful to-night," Inez repeated
more than once.

She herself did not understand why she said it, unless it were that
Dolores' beauty was for Don John of Austria, and that nothing in the
whole world could be too perfect for him, for the hero of her thoughts,
the sun of her blindness, the immeasurably far-removed deity of her
heart. She did not know that it was not for her sister's sake, but for
his, that she had planned the escape and was taking such infinite pains
that Dolores might look her best. Yet she