Yet now as Diantha went about
the house with dreamy eyes and a half smile on her lips, there were
times when the father looked at her almost wistfully and wondered of
what she were thinking. With all due respect to the human will, we
must acknowledge ourselves creatures of circumstance in no little
degree, when two yards of lawn, retailing at twelve and a half cents,
can prove so potent a factor in character and destiny.

Diantha's mother might have prescribed quinine had she noted anything
unusual in the girl's demeanor. But Annabel had reached a crucial
stage in her flirtation with Thad West. The boy was developing a
gratifying jealousy of the tenor singer in the Unitarian church choir
and must be treated with a nice commingling of indulgence and severity
to prevent his asserting himself in the crude masculine fashion, and
either terminating the intimacy or else permanently getting the upper
hand. Annabel was enjoying the crisis of the game and found it
impossible to spare from her own absorbing interests a thought for such
a minor consideration as Diantha's moods.

Diantha anticipated the time when she was to call for her finished
frock by more than an hour. "I know you're not ready yet," she
apologized, as Persis looked at the clock. "But I thought I'd like to
watch you work, if you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind, child. Just put those fashion books on the
table and take the easy chair." Persis bent over the finishings of the
little frock with a vague satisfaction in the nearness of the
motionless figure. She was growing fond of Diantha, a not unnatural
result of the adoring attention Diantha had lavished upon her for a
week past. But because Persis was a woman with a living to make, and
Diantha was a girl with a dream to be dreamed, scarcely a word was
spoken till the last stitch was taken.

"There!" Persis removed a basting thread with a jerk, making an
unsuccessful pretense that the finishing of this dress was like the
completion of any other piece of work. "There! It's done at last. I
suppose you'll want to try it on."

"Yes," said Diantha, "I'll try it on." And as the faded blue serge
slipped from her shoulders to be replaced by the white lawn, the
Diantha who had been, took her departure to that remote country from
which the children never come back.

Persis was almost appalled by the result for which she was principally
responsible. The tall Diantha in a dress to her shoe-tops