ut her cheerfulness was not of a dubious kind at all. She only laughed
again, and patted his arm with a charming air of proprietorship.

"I have got something else to show you," she said; "something up-stairs.
Can you guess what it is? Something for Mollie,--something she wanted
which is dreadfully extravagant."

"What!" exclaimed Griffith. "Not the maroon silk affair!"

"Yes," her doubt as to the wisdom of her course expressing itself in
a whimsical little grimace. "I could n't help it. It will make her so
happy; and I should so have liked it myself if I had been in her place."

She had been going to lead him up-stairs to show it to him as it lay in
state, locked up in the parlor, but all at once she changed her mind.

"No," she said; "I think you had better not see it until Mollie comes
down in state. It will look best then; so I won't spoil the effect by
letting you see it now."

Griffith had brought his offering, too,--not much of an offering,
perhaps, but worth a good deal when valued according to the affectionate
good-will it represented. "The girls" had a very warm corner in the
young man's tender heart, and the half-dozen pairs of gloves he produced
from the shades of an inconvenient pocket of his great-coat, held their
own modest significance.

"Gloves," he said, half apologetically, "always come in; and I believe I
heard Mollie complaining of hers the other day."

Certainly they were appreciated by the young lady in question, their
timely appearance disposing of a slight difficulty of addition to her
toilet.

The maroon silk was to be a surprise; and surely, if ever surprise was a
success, this was. Taking into consideration the fact that she had spent
the earlier part of the day in plaintive efforts to remodel a dubious
garment into a form fitting to grace the occasion, it is not to be
wondered at that the sudden realization of one of her most hopelessly
vivid imaginings rather destroyed the perfect balance of her
equilibrium.

She had almost completed her toilet when Dolly produced her treasure;
nothing, in fact, remained to be done but to don the dubious garment,
when Dolly, slipping out of the room, returned almost immediately with
something on her arm.

"Never mind your old alpaca, Mollie," she said. "I have something better
for you here."

Mollie turned round in some wonder to see what she meant, and the next
minute she turned red and pale with admiring amazement.

"Dolly," she said, rath