ng me go and buy myself
Byrdsville clothes as a friend can be in another's pleasure--not
knowing it to be painful responsibility.

I locked the box that came from New York with all my spring and summer
things in it, in a closet the day it came, and while these things are,
of course crude, I like to be in clothes like the other girls. I seem
to fit in better. I spent seventy-five dollars at that store by hard
effort, and I think won Mr. Hadley's good will for life for both
Father and me. Also Miss Green's check was gratifyingly large both to
her and me.

"Will you trade, Roxanne?" I asked again, keeping the eagerness out of
my voice with my father's stern will.

"Oh, I don't think I ought." Roxanne hesitated and then said: "Are you
sure you don't--that is, are you sure?"

"I am," I answered briskly, and in a business like tone. "You can't
say that lovely old stuff won't make the very cushions for that very
room, Roxanne."

"They truly will be lovely, Phyllis, and that gingham will solve the
problem for Lovey's whole summer. To-morrow we will--"

"Not to-morrow; right now, and I'll help you rip and cut out from the
skirt," I said, and began to undo my belt. I knew better than to let
that family pride get to simmering in Roxanne in the wee small hours
of the night. "A trade is a trade, as soon as it is made. Give me my
dress."

"Oh, Phyllis, there never was anybody like you," laughed Roxanne in a
voice that is like music to a person who understands what friendship
really is and hasn't had very much.

We both laughed as I slipped the quaint old dress over my head and
buttoned the low-necked waist, with its short puffy-sleeves, straight
down the front. It had such a style of its own and fitted me so that I
began to prance in front of the long mirror in the living room, which
is gilt, a hundred years old, and belonged to the stiff grandmother
over the mantel who had probably pranced in the same gown in the same
way fifty years ago, if her heart was as young and happy as mine.

And those were the trying circumstances under which I met the Idol. He
stood there in the doorway and laughed until his big shoulders shook,
and his wonderful eyes danced like sparks. I blushed so painfully that
it felt like measles; but when he saw my embarrassment break out on me
like that, a wonderful sad kindness came into his eyes and he stopped
laughing.

"It's Miss Phyllis Forsythe, isn't it, that I have come home to find
masqueradi