ng to her mother. "Oh, if you were only coming too, Mummy!
If you only were! Just say the word, and I won't go. Why, you'll be here
alone, Mummy, darling, alone all night! You'll miss us _dreadfully_.
What do I care about beaux and balls. I'd rather be with you than with
any one else in the world--_Almost_ any one else," she added honestly,
flushing.

Kate laughed, and pushed her away. "Mag is looking daggers at us. We
mustn't crumple that finery any more, precious.--Remember not to talk at
the top of your lungs.--Have you got a pocket-handkerchief?"

She followed them out to the waiting automobile, smiling; but Philip
noticed that her lips moved now and then silently, and he suspected that
she was praying. He was right. It was the first time in their lives that
her children had gone out of her own protection.

Mag shrouded them in long dust garments, tucked the robes about them
solicitously, having first wrapped each white-slippered foot in tissue
paper. The passionate interest of the girl in the pleasures of these
other girls, pleasures she could never hope to share, struck two at
least of the onlookers as a rather piteous thing.

"Good-by, good-by!" Jacqueline leaned out to throw last kisses
impartially. "How I wish you were coming too, Mag and Mummy and Phil,
you dears! I'll remember everything to tell you, compliments, and all,
and dresses especially, Mag. I'll bring home all the goodies I can stuff
into my pockets, too--oh, dear, there aren't any pockets to a ball
dress! Never mind--I'll put 'em in Goddy's pockets. Good-by! When next
you see us, we'll be real young ladies."

Kate stood gazing after them as wistfully as Mag, both following with
their thoughts two happy young adventurers into a happy world forever
closed to themselves. "You'd like to be going to a ball yourself,
wouldn't you?" said she, to the girl beside her.

"Would I? Oh, my Gawd! _Would_ I?" gasped Mag, and ran into the house.

The repressed intensity of the reply startled Mrs. Kildare. She looked
at Philip. "Did you hear that? I wonder if the girl isn't happy here."

The past few months had done a great deal for Mag Henderson's body,
whatever they had accomplished for her soul. Maternity had developed her
lissome figure into beautiful lines; health, the result of care and good
feeding, colored her lips and her cheeks and her pretty, shallow eyes;
she had learned not only the trick of dressing becomingly, but of
keeping her hair, her han