ke is always fit to
be seen?"

Still, Allie replied by a fresh query.

"Amy, have you seen Mrs. Yorke's best bonnet? her 'sabbath bonnet,' she
calls it." And she turned upon me large eyes, full of solemn meaning.

Yes, I had, indeed, seen Mrs. Yorke's "sabbath bonnet;" and it was the
recollection of that appalling article of attire which at the present
moment was weighing on my own spirits.

Here Daisy piped up, also giving voice to the sentiments of her
sisters.

"Mrs. Yorke is very nice," she said, "and we love her lots, but in her
Sunday clothes she don't seem like Mrs. Yorke."

It was even so. Mrs. Yorke in her every-day costume, and Mrs. Yorke in
gorgeous Sunday array, were two--and "oh the difference to me!"

"How do you know," said uncle Rutherford, "but that Santa Claus himself
may have taken the matter in hand? Mrs. Yorke's Sunday bonnet may not
have been to his taste, and he may have provided her with another."

"I hope, then," answered Allie, sceptically, "that he hasn't brought
her a brown felt with red feathers and a terra-cotta bow."

"That would not have improved matters much, would it?" asked uncle
Rutherford, with a twinkle in his eye. "No; I think his taste would run
to black, perhaps. What do you say, aunt Emily?"

"I should say his fancy would lie in a black felt, with black velvet
trimmings and feathers," answered aunt Emily. "How would that do,
Allie?"

"Very well," said Allie, "if he brought her a black dress, too, 'stead
of a' old plaid."

"And a new cloak, too," put in Daisy. "Her's isn't very pretty; I saw
it once; but I'd just as lieve have Mrs. Yorke anyhow she was."

The grammar might be childishly faulty, but the feeling of the speech
was without a flaw, and from the heart Daisy would have accepted Mrs.
Yorke as she was, and thought it no shame or embarrassment to escort
her anywhere; but bonny Allie was a lady of high degree, with an eye
for appearances and the proprieties, and Mrs. Yorke's antiquated and
incongruous gala costume would sorely have tried her soul, although she
would doubtless have borne her company with a good grace, and with no
outward show of the pangs she might be enduring. How greatly she was
relieved now could be judged by the laughing light which sparkled in
her eyes, the dimples which showed themselves at the corners of her
mouth, and the ecstatic way in which she hugged the long-suffering
doll.

"She'll be lovely and fit-to-be-seen now!" she exclai