you throw it in along with the butter and eggs," said
Madame Griggs, with a return of her slight coquetry. "By-the-way, I
wish you'd send over five pounds of that best butter. Good-afternoon."

"Good-afternoon."

The dressmaker turned in the doorway and looked back. "I'm so glad to
have my mind settled about it," she said, with a pathos which
overcame her absurdity and vulgarity. "I do work awful hard, and it
doesn't seem as if I could lose my money." She appeared suddenly
tragic in her cheap muslin and her frizzes. She looked old and her
features sharpened out rigidly.

Anderson, looking after her, felt both bewilderment and compunction.
He thought for a moment of going after her and saying something
further; then he heard a flutter and a quick sweet voice, and he knew
that Charlotte had come for her hat. He heard her say: "Where? Oh, I
see; all covered up so nicely. Thank you. I did not come before,
because the trees were dripping. Thank you." Then there was a silence.

Anderson got his hat and went out through the store. The old clerk
was fussing over some packages on the counter.

"That young lady came for her hat," he remarked.

"Did she?"

"Yes. She's a pretty-spoken girl. Her sister's goin' to git married
before long, I hear."

Anderson stopped and stared at him. "No; this is the one."

"No; her sister. I had it straight."

Anderson went out. Everything was wonderful outside. The world was
purified of dust and tarnish as a soul of sin. The worn prosaicness
of nature was adorned as with jewels. Everything glittered; a
thousand rainbows seemed to hang on the drenched trees. New blossoms
looked out like new eyes of rapture; every leaf had a high-light of
joy. Anderson drew a long breath. The air was alive with the breath
of the sea from which the fresh wind blew. He walked home with a
quick step like a boy. He was smiling, and fast to his breast, like a
beloved child, he clasped his dream again.

Chapter XVI

There had been considerable discussion among the ladies of the
Carroll family with regard to the necessary finery for Ina's bridal.

"It is all very well to talk about Ina's being married in four
weeks," said Anna Carroll to her sister-in-law, one afternoon
directly after the affair had been settled. "If a girl gets married,
she has to have new clothes, of course--a trousseau."

"Why, yes, of course! How could she be married if she didn't have a
trousseau? I had a very pretty trousseau,