dmother has
done it," cried Miss Cadwalader. "What shall we do?" cried Betty Morris.
The gong, a new fashion, rang for dinner. The girl was angry.

"This passes the limit of a jest," she cried. "Go down? I? No. I will
die first." They implored, laughing; but she refused, saying, "I sit
here till I have my gown," and would speak no more.

At this minute came Mrs. Penn. "What is all this noise, young women?
Good Lord! Margaret Swanwick! So this is what these minxes have been at
all the morning?"

"I have been tricked," said Margaret, "and--and I will never forgive
them--never."

"But come down to dinner, my dear. You will have your revenge when the
men see you. There, the Governor dislikes to wait. He has sent up to say
dinner is ready."

"I want my gown," said the Pearl, "and I will not go down." Only anger
kept her from tears.

"But the Governor must see you. Come, no one will know, and, bless me!
but you are a beauty!"

"Isn't she?" they cried in chorus. A glance at the mirror and a
triumphant sense of victorious capacities to charm swept over the
hesitating girl. Life of late had been as gray as her garb.

"Come, dear. You really must. You are making too much, quite too much,
of a bit of innocent fun. If you wait to dress, I shall have to explain
it all, and the Governor will say you lack courage; and must I say I
left you in tears? And the mutton, my dear child--think of the mutton!"

"I am not in tears, and I hate you all, every one of you; but I will
go."

Her head was up, as fan in hand she went down in front of the cousins,
now mildly penitent, Mrs. Penn at her side. "Did they think to show off
an awkward Quaker cousin, these thoughtless kittens? Give them a lesson,
my dear."

"I mean to," said Margaret, her eyes flashing.

The men were about the fire in the great drawing-room, one little girl
just slipping out, the future wife of Henry Baring. The party was
large--young Mr. Rawle and General Wayne and the Peters from Belmont
near by.

The men turned to bow as Mrs. Penn stepped aside, and left to view a
startling vision of innocence and youth and loveliness. The girl swept a
curtsey, the practice when dreams of the world were teasing her had not
been in vain. Then she rose and moved into the room. For a moment there
was silence. Except Schmidt, no one knew her. The Governor, bowing,
cried, "By George! Margaret, you beat them all! What fairies have
metamorphosed you?"

"We, we," cried the choru