mira asked, at length, timidly, but laughing
before him at the same time like a foolish child who cannot conceal
delight.

"Nothing," said her brother; "good-night," and went into his chamber
and shut his door.

Chapter XXIII

The most intimate friends in unwonted gala attire are always
something of a revelation to one another. Butterflies, meeting for
the first time after their release from chrysalis, might well have
the same awe and confusion of old memories.

On the night of the party, when they were dressed and had come
down-stairs, Jerome, who had seen his sister every day of his life,
looked at her as if for the first time, and she looked in the same
way at him. Elmira's Aunt Belinda Lamb had given her, some time
before, a white muslin gown of her girlhood.

"I 'ain't got any daughter to make it over for," said she, "an' you
might as well have it." Belinda Lamb had looked regretfully at its
voluminous folds, as she passed it over to Elmira. Privately she
could not see why she should not wear it still, but she knew that she
would not dare face Paulina Maria when attired in it.

Elmira, after much discussion with her mother, had decided upon
refurbishing this old white muslin, and wearing that instead of her
new green silk to the party.

"It will look more airy for an evenin' company," said Mrs. Edwards,
"an' the skirt is so full you can take out some of the breadths an'
make ruffles."

Elmira and her mother had toiled hard to make those ruffles and
finish their daily stent on shoes, but the dress was in readiness and
Elmira arrayed in it before eight o'clock on Thursday night. Her
dress had a fan waist cut low, with short puffs for sleeves. Her
neck, displaying, as it did, soft hollows rather than curves, and her
arms, delicately angular at wrists and elbows, were still beautiful.
She was thin, but her bones were so small that little flesh was
required to conceal harsh outlines.

She wore a black velvet ribbon tied around her throat, and from it
hung a little gold locket--one of the few treasures of her mother's
girlhood. Elmira had tended a little pot of rose-geranium in a south
window all winter. This spring it was full of pale pink bloom. She
had made a little chaplet of the fragrant leaves and flowers to adorn
her smooth dark hair, and also a pretty knot for her breast. Her
skirt was ruffled to her slender waist with tiniest frills of the
diaphanous muslin. Elmira in her party gown looked