r's trousseau consisted
of a moth-eaten Paisley shawl, a checked silk skirt of unbelievable
hideousness, a muslin scarf; yellow with age, a broken ivory fan, and a
pair of mittens. A vision of Esther figuring as a bride in this old-
world costume, rose before Peggy's quick-seeing eyes, the checked silk
transforming her slim figure into Mother-Bunch proportions, the shawl
folded primly round her shoulders, the fan waving to and fro in the
mittened hand. Do what she would, she could not control the inward
spasm of laughter; her shoulders heaved and shook, and Mrs Asplin felt
the movement, and turned a quick glance upon her.

"Laughing? What for? Don't you like them then? You saucy child, and I
thought they were so nice!"

"Oh, mater dear, and so they are--in their present condition; but the
idea of converting them into fashionable new garments is too funny
altogether. You might as well try to cut up an oak-tree into fancy
borderings. Leave them as they are, dear, and lend them to me, so that
I may dress up and amuse my people. Then they will be doing real good
work."

"I'll do nothing of the kind. Much obliged to you for the suggestion,
but I can make better use of them than that. You are as bad as
Mellicent, laughing at my poor old treasures. I don't know what the
world is coming to, I'm sure. Such upsetting notions the young folks
are getting." Mrs Asplin swept up the despised trophies in her arms,
and bustled out of the room with a show of displeasure, which, truth to
tell, had little effect upon the culprit. It was not the first, nor the
second, nor the twentieth time that a similar scene had been enacted,
for "mother's resurrections" were a standing joke in the Asplin family,
and the final fate thereof an open secret. However lofty might be the
first suggested use, the end was always the same. Her offerings scorned
by ungrateful relatives, she took refuge in dusters, and patiently
hemmed squares of the rejected fabrics, with which to enrich the already
lordly store of these useful commodities. On the present occasion she
had hardly passed the door before she had decided that for drawing-room
use nothing was really so good as a soft silk duster. The fate of the
old check skirt was sealed!

The summer passed away very rapidly for Peggy, dividing her time between
two happy homes, on both of which the sun shone as brightly and
continuously as in the world without, and shadows seemed for the present