ut of style? Nobody wears
brocades; and they are not trimming with lace at all. I wish you had
advised with me."

The blood rushed to Mary's face. Though she did not turn her eyes to
Christian's, she knew that they were looking at her--that he was noting
her confusion and comprehending its cause. "He knows why I have bought
this brocade," was her thought, "and he knows that I am humiliated in
having my poverty held up to his view. Of course Christian knows that I
am poor, and he must know, as a consequence, that I wear poor clothes. I
can endure that he should know this in a general way, while I shrink
from having the details of my poverty revealed to him. I would not wish
my patched gaiters and darned stockings held up for his inspection."

Mary hesitated a moment before replying to Mrs. Van Pelt's criticism.
Then, with a feeling that it was better to acknowledge a poverty of
which both her companions were cognizant than an ignorance of style, she
said, with a slight kindling of the eye, "I decided on this dress from
economical considerations, and the lace is some which my mother's
great-grandmother brought from Holland.--I have reminded them, at least,
that I had a grandfather," she thought.

As she finished speaking she lifted her eyes to Christian's. She could
not understand the expression she saw there. But the poor girl's
satisfaction in her dress was all gone. She was ready to reproach her
mother for the reassuring words that had helped to generate it. "What if
it is pretty? it is old-fashioned. No matter that the lace is rich, when
nobody wears it. I must look as though I were dressed in my
grandmother's clothes. I wish I was back in my poor home. There I am at
least sheltered from criticism. I am a fool in daring to face fashion: I
am the silly moth in the candle."

If these were Mary's thoughts as she sat there with her two friends,
what must they have become as the regally-dressed ladies, one after
another, were announced? There were the majestic sweep of velvet, the
floating of cloudlike gossamer, the flashing diamond, the starry pearl,
the flaming ruby, the blazing carbuncle. There were marvelous toilets
where contrast and harmony and picturesqueness--the effect of every
color and ornament--had been patiently studied as the artist studies
each shade and line on his canvas. And when the laugh and the jest and
the wit were sounding all about her, and the intoxicating music came
sweeping in from the dancin