thrown over one of the manikins, with a sketch of the completed
costume attached to the skirt. "The blending of those pale shades of
green and that embroidery of golden wheat, with a scarlet poppy here and
there,--the effect is superb! Then the style, as this sketch shows, is
perfectly novel. I am enchanted! Miss Ruth, I must have that dress! _At
any price_, I must have it!"

"It is to go to New Orleans, madame," replied Ruth. "It was ordered by
Mrs. Senator la Motte, and is to be worn at some grand wedding."

"No matter--I tell you _I must have it!_ Where is Mademoiselle
Victorine?"

Ruth summoned the forewoman. Victorine advanced very deliberately, and
her bearing had a touch of patronage and condescension.

Mrs. Gilmer pleaded hard for the possession of the dress; but
Mademoiselle Victorine appeared to take the greatest satisfaction in
making her understand that its becoming hers was an impossibility. The
more earnestly Mrs. Gilmer prayed, the more inflexible became the
forewoman. As for _repeating_ a design which had been invented for one
particular person, _that_, she asserted, was against all rules of art.
The original design might be feebly, imperfectly copied by other
mantua-makers, but its duplicate could not be sent forth from an
establishment of the standing of Mademoiselle Melanie's.

Mrs. Gilmer, whose white brow was knitted with something very like a
frown, remarked that she would talk to Mademoiselle Melanie on the
subject, by and by.

"Mademoiselle Melanie does not usually reverse _my_ decisions," replied
the piqued forewoman, with an extravagant show of dignity.

"We shall see!" retorted Mrs. Gilmer. "Now let me choose a head-dress
for the opera to-night; something original. What can you invent for me?"

"Really," answered Victorine, who was not a little irate at the
suggestion that there _could_ be any appeal from her verdict; "I do not
feel inspired at this moment; I am quite dull; nothing occurs to me out
of the usual line."

"Oh! you _must_ think!" pleaded the volatile lady. "Invent me something
never before seen; something with flowers will do; but let me have
_impossible_ flowers,--flowers which have no existence, and which I
shall not behold upon every one's else head. Price is no object; my
husband never refuses me anything! Especially," she added in a lower
tone, to M. de Bois, "when he is _jealous_; and I find it very useful,
absolutely _necessary_, to begin the season by exciting a