.

We do not claim for her any superhuman exemption from girlish feelings.
She was innocently dazzled with the vision of courtly halls and princely
splendors, and thought Mrs. Adams's descriptions almost a perfect
realization of things she had read in "Sir Charles Grandison." If her
mother thought it right and proper she should be dressed and made fine,
she was glad of it; only there came a heavy, leaden feeling in her
little heart, which she did not understand, but we who know womankind
will translate for you: it was, that a certain pair of dark eyes would
not see her after she was dressed; and so, after all, what was the use
of looking pretty?

"I wonder what James _would_ think," passed through her head; for Mary
had never changed a ribbon, or altered the braid of her hair, or pinned
a flower in her bosom, that she had not quickly seen the effect of the
change mirrored in those dark eyes. It was a pity, of course, now she
had found out that she ought not to think about him, that so many
thought-strings were twisted round him.

So while Miss Prissy turned over her papers, and read out of others
extracts about Lord Caermarthen and Sir Clement Cotterel Dormer and the
Princess Royal and Princess Augusta, in black and silver, with a silver
netting upon the coat, and a head stuck full of diamond pins,--and Lady
Salisbury and Lady Talbot and the Duchess of Devonshire, and scarlet
satin sacks and diamonds and ostrich-plumes, and the King's kissing Mrs.
Adams,--little Mary's blue eyes grew larger and larger, seeing far off
on the salt green sea, and her ears heard only the ripple and murmur of
those waters that earned her heart away,--till, by-and-by, Miss Prissy
gave her a smart little tap, which awakened her to the fact that she was
wanted again to try on the dress which Miss Prissy's nimble fingers had
basted.

So passed the day,--Miss Prissy busily chattering, clipping,
basting,--Mary patiently trying on to an unheard-of extent,--and Mrs.
Scudder's neat room whipped into a perfect froth and foam of gauze,
lace, artificial flowers, linings, and other aids, accessories, and
abetments.

At dinner, the Doctor, who had been all the morning studying out his
Treatise on the Millennium, discoursed tranquilly as usual, innocently
ignorant of the unusual cares which were distracting the minds of his
listeners. What should he know of dress-makers, good soul? Encouraged
by the respectful silence of his auditors, he calmly expan