before
for one of her own, in order that her appearance might excite less remark
among the servants pending the obtaining of a suitable wardrobe from the
city.

There was another consideration which made the change of costume not only
desirable, but necessary.

Ida's dress, which had not seemed the night before, to casual
examination, to differ from other cloth, had begun to crumble away in a
very curious manner. The texture seemed strangely brittle and
strengthless. It fell apart at a touch, and was reduced to a fine powder
under the pressure of the fingers. She could not possibly have worn it
even one day.

The dress of Miss Ludington's, for which she exchanged it, had been made
for that lady when considerably stouter than at present, but was with
difficulty enlarged sufficiently for the full figure of the girl. Like
all but the latest of Miss Ludington's dresses, it was of deepest black,
and, strikingly beautiful as Ida had been in white, the funereal hue set
off the delicacy of her complexion, the pure expression of her face, and
the golden lustre of her hair, like fresh revelations.

Paul was left pretty much to himself during the day. A large part of it
was spent by the ladies in an upstairs chamber, which Miss Ludington had
devoted to a collection of mementoes of the successive periods of her
life from infancy.

"Come," she had said to Ida, "I want to introduce you to the rest of the
family. I want to make you acquainted with the other Miss Ludingtons who
have borne the name between your time and mine."

Having been an only child, Miss Ludington's garments, toys, school-books,
and other belongings had not been handed down to younger brothers and
sisters, and eventually to destruction. It had been an easy matter to
preserve them, and, consequently, the collection was large and curious,
including samples of the wardrobe appertaining to every epoch, from the
swaddling-clothes of the infant to a black gown of the last year.

After the period of youth, however, which Ida represented, the number and
interest of the mementoes rapidly decreased, and for many years had
consisted of nothing more than a few dresses and a collection of
photographs, one or two for each year, arranged in order. They numbered
not less than fifty in all and covered thirty-seven years, from a
daguerreotype of Miss Ludington at the age of twenty-five to a photograph
taken the last month. Between these two pictures there was not enough
re