ms," he declared.

"I'd rather--"

"You'd rather do exactly what would please me, now wouldn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then run along and put on that dinner dress that I liked best. And
tell Ma to look her prettiest, too. We'll not spoil this day."

It was seven-thirty when Gray, in evening clothes, appeared at the
Briskow suite. Allie told herself there had never been a man so
handsome, so distinguished, so Godlike as he. God, she now felt sure,
must wear full dress.

Gus Briskow beamed as the visitor smiled approvingly at his daughter.
"She is purty, ain't she? Don't look much like the girl I sent to
Dallas for fixin's."

"Allie is more then pretty, she's regal. 'Such another peerless queen
only could her mirror show.' But--her head is turned already, Gus.
Don't spoil her." The speaker stood with arms folded and head lowered
while he studied the girl impersonally. Allie wore an expensive black
lace dress, sleeveless and sufficiently low of neck to display her
charms. "Plain! A little too somber," Gray declared. "She can afford
colors, ornaments. Jove! I'd like some time to see her in something
Oriental, something barbaric. The next time I'm in New York I'll select
a gown--"

Ma Briskow entered at the moment, greatly flustered and extremely
self-conscious, and here, certainly, was no lack of ornamentation or of
color. Ma wore all her jewelry, and her dress was an elaborate creation
of brilliant jade green, from one shoulder of which depended a filmy
streamer of green chiffon. In her desire to gild the lily she had
knotted a Roman scarf about her waist--a scarf of many colors, of red,
of yellow, of purple, of blue, of orange--a very spectrum of vivid
stripes, and it utterly ruined her. It lent her an air of extreme
superfluity; it was as if she had put on everything except the
bedspread.

"You said to look my nicest," she bubbled, "so I done the best I could."

"You _are_ lovely, both of you, but--this is my party, isn't it? I can
do anything I please?" Gray looked from one to the other in eager
inquiry. "Then let me fix you my way. Ma Briskow, your face is too
sweet, too gentle, to be spoiled. Your charm is in your simplicity.
Here, I have it!"

With swift impetuosity he untied the scarf and whipped it from Ma's
waist. "Watch me now and you'll see I'm right." With his penknife he
cut the threads that held the chiffon streamer in place and removed it.
"_Voila_! Even so little, and we see an adorable motherly