admiration and could not keep from
showing it. This disconcerted the girl, and increased her
embarrassment until we could not tell which was the prettiest--the
garments, the girl or the confusion; but this I know, the whole
picture was as sweet and beautiful as the eyes of man could behold.

Fine feathers will not make fine birds, and Mary's masculine attire
could no more make her look like a man than harness can disguise the
graces of a gazelle. Nothing could conceal her intense, exquisite
womanhood. With our looks of astonishment and admiration Mary's
blushes deepened.

"What is the matter? Is anything wrong?" she asked.

[Illustration]

"Nothing is wrong," answered Brandon, smiling in spite of himself;
"nothing on earth is wrong with you, you may be sure. You are
perfect--that is, for a woman; and one who thinks there is anything
wrong about a perfect woman is hard to please. But if you flatter
yourself that you, in any way, resemble a man, or that your dress in
the faintest degree conceals your sex, you are mistaken. It makes it
only more apparent."

"How can that be?" asked Mary, in comical tribulation; "is not this a
man's doublet and hose, and this hat--is it not a man's hat? They are
all for a man; then why do I not look like one, I ask? Tell me what is
wrong. Oh! I thought I looked just like a man; I thought the disguise
was perfect."

"Well," returned Brandon, "if you will permit me to say so, you are
entirely too symmetrical and shapely ever to pass for a man."

The flaming color was in her cheeks, as Brandon went on: "Your feet
are too small, even for a boy's feet. I don't think you could be made
to look like a man if you worked from now till doomsday."

Brandon spoke in a troubled tone, for he was beginning to see in
Mary's perfect and irrepressible womanhood an insurmountable
difficulty right across his path.

"As to your feet, you might find larger shoes, or, better still,
jack-boots; and, as to your hose, you might wear longer trunks, but
what to do about the doublet I am sure I do not know."

Mary looked up helpless and forlorn, and the hot face went into her
bended elbow as a realization of the situation seemed to dawn upon
her.

"Oh! I wish I had not come. But I wanted to grow accustomed so that I
could wear them before others. I believe I could bear it more easily
with any one else. I did not think of it in that way," and she
snatched her cloak from where it had fallen on the floor and