n the next room.

"This way, my dears!" and she led the way into a bedroom, as white and
fresh and dainty as the sitting-room. Janet was already on her knees
before a deep chest, quaintly carved, and clamped with brass. Now, at
her mistress's request, she began to lift out the contents.

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried the three girls, positively squeaking with rapture
and wonderment. The old lady looked from them to the dresses with a
pleased smile. "They are handsome!" she said.

And they were! They must have been stately dames indeed, the Montfort
ladies who wore these splendid clothes! Here was a crimson damask, so
heavily embroidered in silver that it stood alone when Janet set it up
on the floor; here, again, a velvet, somewhat rubbed by long lying in
the chest, but of so rich and glowing a purple that only a queen could
have found it becoming. Here were satins that gleamed like falling
water; one, of the faint, moonlight tint that we call aqua-marine,
another with a rosy glow like a reflected sunset. And the peach-coloured
silk! and the blue and silver brocade! and the amber velvet!

Before the bottom of the chest was reached, the girls were silent,
having exhausted their stock of words.

At last Margaret cried, "Who were these people, Aunt Faith? Were they
princesses, or runaway Indian begums, or what? They certainly cannot
have been simple gentlewomen!"

Mrs. Cheriton laughed her soft, rustling laugh.

"It is a curious old Montfort custom," she said; "it has come down
through many generations, I believe. The women have had the habit of
keeping the handsomest gown they had, or one connected with some special
great event, and laying it in this old chest. Some of them are
wedding-gowns,--those two satins, for example, and that white brocade
with the tiny rosebuds,--that was your Grandmother Montfort's
wedding-gown, my dears, and she looked like a rose in it; I was
bridesmaid at her wedding. But others,--ah! hand me the blue and silver
brocade, Janet! Yes, here is an inscription that will, I think, amuse
you, my children. This was my own mother's contribution to the family
chest."

She beckoned the girls to look, and they bent eagerly forward. Under the
rich lace in the neck of the splendid brocade, a piece of paper was
neatly stitched, and on the paper was written: "This Gown was worne at
Madam Washington's Ball. I danced with Gen. Washington, the Court
Minuet, and he praised my dancing. Afterwards the Gen. spilled W