e me."

"He does look well, but I'd hardly call him fat, would you?"

"Well, he's stouter than he used to be, anyway. Did he say when he was
going to take you back with him?"

"Next Wednesday. We'll have to hurry to get this dress ready in time."

"I'll start right in at it. Have you made up your mind whether you'll
have it princess or a separate waist and skirt?"

"I'm a little too thin for a princess gown, don't you think? Hadn't I
better have it made like that black poplin which everybody thought
looked so well on me?"

"But it ain't half so stylish as the princess. You just let me put a few
cambric ruffles inside the bust and you'll stand out a plenty. I was
reading in a fashion sheet only yesterday that they are trying to look
as flat as they can manage in Paris."

"Well, I'll try it," murmured Virginia uncertainly, for her standards of
dress were so vague that she was thankful to be able to rely on Miss
Willy's self-constituted authority.

"You just leave it to me," was the dressmaker's reply, while she thrust
the point of the scissors into the gleaming brocade on the bed.

The morning passed so quickly amid cutting, basting, and gossip, that it
came as a surprise to Virginia when she heard the front door open and
shut and Oliver's rapid step mounting the stairs. Meeting him in the
hall, she led the way into her bedroom, and asked with the caressing,
slightly conciliatory manner which expressed so perfectly her attitude
toward life:

"Did you see Uncle Cyrus?"

"Yes, and he was nicer than I have ever known him to be. By the way,
Virginia, I've transferred enough property to you to bring you in a
separate income. This was really what I went down about."

"But what is the matter, dear? Don't you feel well? Have you had any
worries that you haven't told me?"

"Oh, I'm all right, but it's better so in case something should happen."

"But what could possibly happen? I never saw you look better. Miss Willy
was just saying so."

He turned away, not impatiently, but as one who is seeking to hide an
emotion which has become too strong. Then without replying to her
question, he muttered something about "a number of letters to write
before dinner," and hurried out of the room and downstairs to his study.

"I wonder if he has lost money," she thought, vaguely troubled, as she
instinctively straightened the brushes he had disarranged on the bureau.
"Poor Oliver! He seems to think about nothing but money now,