u
she never had anything like the rig she wore to-day."

"What was it?" asked her mother interestedly, wiping her rasped nose
with a moist ball of handkerchief.

"Oh, it was the handsomest brown suit I ever laid my eyes on, with
hand-embroidery, and fur, and a big picture hat trimmed with fur and
chrysanthemums. She's an awful pretty little girl anyhow."

"She always was pretty," said Mrs. White, dabbing her nose again.

"If Ida don't look out, her step-daughter will beat her in looks,"
said Lillian.

"I never thought myself that Ida was anything to brag of, anyway,"
said Mrs. White. She still had a sense of wondering injury that Harry
Edgham had preferred Ida to her Lillian.

Lillian was now engaged to be married, but her mother did not feel
quite satisfied with the man. He was employed in a retail clothing
establishment in New York, and had only a small salary. "Foster
Simpkins" (that was the young man's name) "ain't really what you
ought to have," she often said to Lillian.

But Lillian took it easily. She liked the young man very much as she
would have liked a sugar-plum, and she thought it high time for her
to be married, although she was scarcely turned twenty. "Oh, well,
ma," she said. "Men don't grow on every bush, and Foster is real
good-lookin', and maybe his salary will be raised."

"You ain't lookin' very high," said her mother.

"No use in strainin' your neck for things out of your own sky," said
Lillian, who had at times a shrewd sort of humor, inherited from her
father.

"Harry Edgham would have been a better match for you," her mother
said.

"Lord, I'd a good sight rather have Foster than another woman's
leavin's," replied Lillian. "Then there was Maria, too. It would have
been an awful job to dress her, and look out for her."

"That's so," said her mother, "and then the two sets of children,
too."

Lillian colored and giggled. "Oh, land, don't talk about children,
ma!" said she. "I'm contented as it is. But you ought to have seen
that young one to-day."

"What did Ida wear?" asked Mrs. White.

"She wore her black velvet suit, that she had this winter, and the
way she strutted up the aisle was a caution."

"I don't see how Harry Edgham lives the way he does," said Mrs.
White. "Black velvet costs a lot. Do you s'pose it is silk velvet?"

"You bet."

"I don't see how he does it!"

"He looks sort of worn-out to me. He's grown awful old, I noticed it
to-day."

"Well, all Ida care