on her
neck and kiss her. Persis, whose acquaintance with the girl was
comparatively slight, viewed those indications of overmastering
affection with perplexity.

Mildred did not wait to be questioned. Her volubility suggested that
she could not have withheld information if she had tried.

"Oh, Miss Dale; I've got the greatest news to tell you. You'd never
guess in the world. I'm going to be married."

"Well, all I can say is, Mildred, that it's not the most surprising
news I ever heard," Persis answered kindly. There was something
pleasant in the sight of this flushed, happy young creature who only
the other day had been a dull heavy-eyed girl and soon would be a dull
heavy-eyed wife. It was her little hour, her transient spring-time.
Persis choked back a sigh.

Mildred was fumbling at the parcel in her lap. "I've always said one
thing, that if ever I got married, Miss Dale was going to make my
wedding dress. I can sew well enough for ordinary clothes, but a
wedding dress is sort of special. That calls for a regular dressmaker,
and there ain't but one dressmaker in Clematis that counts."

"When's the wedding to be?" Persis asked. A sudden sinking of the
heart foretold the answer.

"It's a week from Saturday. It's so sudden that I can hardly believe
it myself. We didn't think we could be married for a year, anyway, but
Jim got a raise unexpected. They're going to send him West, and he's
bound I shall go when he does."

The parcel was unwrapped at last, its shimmering white contents
contrasting with the girl's shabby dress and work-roughened hands, much
as the dreams of the wedding-day contrast with the hard realities that
follow. Persis looked, hesitated, thought of the filmy gray, just cut
and awaiting basting, thought of the hopes that linked the present with
her lost girlhood, and ended as she had always ended, by unselfish
surrender.

"It's pretty goods," she said, touching it lightly with the tips of her
fingers. "And--and there's nothing I like better to make than wedding
clothes, my dear."

Certain important details came up for discussion, interrupted
frequently by the outgushing of Mildred's artless confidences, to all
of which Persis listened patiently. And when the girl took her
departure, the impulse which had manifested itself on her arrival
proved too strong to resist. She kissed Persis good-by, and Persis
returned the kiss.

The rudimentary beginnings of a new gray gown were