t at the sight of Becky in the
rosy wrap with her hair peaked up to a topknot.

"Ain' you in baid?" she asked, superfluously.

"No. Who wants me, Mandy?"

"I tole you--Mr. Randy."

Becky deliberated. "I'll go down. When I come up we'll unpack all this,
Mandy."

Randy at the other end of the wire was asking Becky to go to a barbecue
the next day.

"The boarders are giving it--it is Mother's birthday and they want to
celebrate. It is to be on Pavilion Hill. They want you and the
Judge----"

"To-morrow? Oh, I don't know, Randy."

"Why not? Have you another engagement?"

"No."

"Then what's the matter? Can't you tear yourself away from your shining
knight?"

Silence.

"Becky--oh, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry--_Becky_----"

Her answer came faintly, "I'll come."

"What's the matter with the wire? I can't hear you."

There was nothing the matter with the wire. The thing that was the
matter was Becky's voice. She found it suddenly unmanageable. "We'll
come," she told him finally, and hung up the receiver.

She ascended the stairs as if she carried a burden on her back. Mandy
was on her knees before the hamper, untying the rosy packages.

"Is you goin' to try 'em on, honey?" she asked.

Becky stood in the doorway, the lace wrap hanging from her shoulders and
showing the delicate blue of the negligee beneath--her face was like
chalk but her eyes shone. "Yes," she said, "there's a pink gingham I
want to wear to the barbecue to-morrow. There ought to be a hat to match.
Did the hats come, Mandy?"

"Calvin he say there's another box, but he ain' brought it up from the
deepot. He was ridin' dat Jo-mule, and this yer basket was all he could
ca'y."

In the pink frock Becky looked like a lovely child.

"Huc-cum you-all gettin' eve'y thing pink, Miss Becky?" Mandy asked.

"For a change," said Becky.

And how could she tell old Mandy that she had felt that in a
rose-colored world everything should be rose-color?

She tried on each frock deliberately. She tried on every pair of
slippers. She tried on the wraps, and the hats which came up finally
with Calvin staggering beneath the bulkiness of the box. She was lovely
in everything. And she was no longer the little Becky Bannister whom
Dalton had wooed. She was Mademoiselle Midas, appraising her beauty in
her lovely clothes, and wondering what Dalton would think if he could
see her.

II

Becky did not, after all, wear the pink gingham. The Judge elected