ge
your min',' I say; an' I stan' outside her door till she pass me de
whole dam' works."

"' Don' forget de little shoes,' I say--an' dat's how it come!"

"And you paid three hundred dollars for it!" Necia said, aghast. The
Canadian shrugged.

"Only for de good heart of Marie Bourgette I pay wan t'ousan'," said
he. "I mak' seven hondred dollar clean profit!"

"It was very nice of both of you, but--I can't wear it. I've never seen
a dress like it, except in pictures, and I couldn't--" She saw his face
fall, and said, impulsively:

"I'll wear it once, anyhow, Poleon, just for you. Go away quick, now,
and let me put it on."

"Dat's good," he nodded, as he moved away. "I bet you mak' dose
dance-hall women look lak' sucker."

No man may understand the girl's feelings as she set about clothing
herself in her first fine dress. Time and again she had studied
pictures from the "outside" showing women arrayed in the newest styles,
and had closed her eyes to fancy herself dressed in like manner. She
had always had an instinctive feeling that some day she would leave the
North and see the wonderful world of which men spoke so much, and
mingle with the fine ladies of her picture-books, but she never dreamed
to possess an evening-gown while she lived in Alaska. And now, even
while she recognized the grotesqueness of the situation, she burned to
wear it and see herself in the garb of other women. So, with the
morning sun streaming brightly into her room, lighting up the
moss-chinked walls, the rough barbarism of fur and head and trophy, she
donned the beautiful garments.

Poleon's eye had been amazingly correct, for it fitted her neatly, save
at the waist, which was even more than an inch too large,
notwithstanding the fact that she had never worn such a corset as the
well-formed Marie Bourgette was accustomed to.

She pondered long and hesitated modestly when she saw its low cut,
which exposed her neck and shoulders in a totally unaccustomed manner,
for it struck her as amazingly indecent until she scurried through her
magazines again and saw that its construction, as compared with others,
was most conservative. Even so she shrank at sight of herself below the
line of sunburn, for she was ringed about like a blue-winged teal, the
demarcation being more pronounced because of the natural whiteness of
her skin. The year previous Doret had brought her from the coast a
Spanish shawl, which a salt-water sailor had sold him, an