inness of the girl's
figure, and her gay, winsome look interested her, and, as if speaking to
herself, she said:

'You will want something very sweet; something quite pure and lovely for
Miss Scully?'

Mother and daughter were instantly all attention, and Mrs. Symond
continued:

'Let me see, I have some Surat silk that would make up sweetly. Miss
Cooper, will you have the kindness to fetch those rolls of Surat silk we
received yesterday from Paris?'

Then, beautiful as a flower harvesting, the hues and harmonies of earth,
ocean, and sky fell before the ravished eyes. The white Surat silk,
chaste, beautiful, delicious as that presentiment of shared happiness
which fills a young girl's mind when her fancy awakens in the soft
spring sunlight; the white faille with tulle and garlands of white
lilac, delicate and only as sensuous as the first meetings of
sweethearts, when the may is white in the air and the lilac is in bloom
on the lawn; trains of blue sapphire broche looped with blue ostrich
feathers, seductive and artificial as a boudoir plunged in a dream of
Ess. bouquet; dove-coloured velvet trains adorned with tulips and tied
with bows of brown and pink--temperate as the love that endures when the
fiery day of passion has gone down; bodices and trains of daffodil silk,
embroidered with shaded maple-leaves, impure as lamp-lit and
patchouli-scented couches; trains of white velouture festooned with
tulle; trails of snowdrops, icy as lips that have been bought, and cold
as a life that lives in a name.

The beautiful silks hissed as they came through the hands of the
assistants, cat-like the velvet footfalls of the velvet fell; it was a
witches' Sabbath, and out of this terrible caldron each was to draw her
share of the world's gifts. Smiling and genial, Mrs. Symond stirred the
ingredients with a yard measure; the girls came trembling, doubting,
hesitating; and the anxious mothers saw what remained of their
jeopardized fortunes sliding in a thin golden stream into the flaming
furnace that the demon of Cork Hill blew with unintermittent breath.

Secrets, what secrets were held on the subject of the presentation
dresses! The obscure Hill was bound with a white frill of anticipation.
Olive's fame had gone forth. She was admitted to be the new Venus, and
Lord Kilcarney was spoken of as likely to yield to her the coveted
coronet. Would he marry her without so much as looking at another girl?
was the question on every lip,