inlaid with silver
was slung at her shoulder, while across her breast, the only note of
color in the general harmony of white, fell a scarf of apple-green
holding the horn, also of ivory and silver, which, like the belt and
bow, had been designed for her in Madame de Longueville's Paris.

But neither she nor her model would have been finally content with an
adornment so delicately fanciful and minute. Both Kitty and the goddess
of the Fronde knew that they must hold their own in a crowd. For this
there must be diamonds. The sleeves, therefore, on the white arms fell
back from diamond clasps; the ivory spear in her right hand was topped
by a small genius with glittering wings; and in the masses of her fair
hair, bound with pearl fillets, shone the large diamond crescent that
Lady Tranmore had foreseen, with one small attendant star at either
side.

[Illustration: THE FINISHING TOUCHES]

"Well, upon my word, Kitty!" said a voice from her husband's
dressing-room.

Kitty turned impetuously.

"Do you like it?" she cried. Ashe approached. She lifted her horn to her
mouth and stood tiptoe. The movement was enchanting; it had in it the
youth and freshness of spring woods; it suggested mountain distances and
the solitudes of high valleys. Intoxication spoke in Ashe's pulses; he
wished the maids had been far away that he might have taken the goddess
in his very human arms. Instead of which he stood lazily smiling.

"What Endymion are you calling?" he asked her. "Kitty, you are a dream!"

Kitty pirouetted, then suddenly stopped short and held out a foot.

"Look at those silk things, sir. Nobody but Fanchette could have made
them look anything but a botch. But they spoil the dress. And all to
please mother and Mrs. Grundy!"

"I like them. I suppose--the nearest you could get to buskins? You would
have preferred ankles <i>au naturel</i>? I don't think you'd have been
admitted, Kitty."

"Shouldn't I? And so few people have feet they can show!" sighed Kitty,
regretfully.

Ashe's eyes met those of the maid, who was trying to hide her smiles,
and he and she both laughed.

"What do you think about it, eh, Blanche?"

"I think her ladyship is much better as she is," said the maid,
decidedly. "She'd have felt very strange when she got there."

Kitty turned upon her like a whirlwind. "Go to bed!" she said, putting
both hands on the shoulders of the maid. "Go to bed at once! Esther can
give me my cloak. Do you know, William