times, as if
she were officiating at a rite; and gradually, very gradually, the
business proceeded.

Facing a corner of the bedroom, with a large window to her left, Mrs.
Delarayne sat before her dressing-table, upon which, towering above the
forest of bottles, brushes, boxes, and other paraphernalia, stood a
large triple mirror, which enabled the elegant widow to get three
different aspects of her handsome face at the same time.

The expression upon Mrs. Delarayne's face when she peered into this
formidable reflector of her own image was scarcely self-complacent or
serene. It was rather studious, anxious, critical, almost fierce, like
that one would expect to find on the face of an ancient alchemist
contemplating an alembic of precious compounds. Year in, year out, ever
since her gradually waning youth had begun to add ever fresh
complications to her once rapid and easy toilet, Mrs. Delarayne had
faced herself with this determined and defiant expression on her
features, resolved to overcome every difficulty and every undesirable
innovation of time. Slowly the complex equipment had grown up. Now it
was so extensive, that it required all the dexterity and knowledge that
habit alone can impart, in order to master and understand its
multitudinous intricacies.

In this mirror, then, when her expression was at its fiercest in
intentness and concentration, she saw her daughter enter the room behind
her, and for an instant a spasmodic frown darkened her already lowering
brow.

"I cannot see you now, you know that, Leo darling," she hastened to
exclaim as sweetly as possible, while her daughter was still on the
threshold.

"All right, Peachy,--I shan't keep you a moment."

A slight flush crept up the mother's neck just below her ears,--this was
a thing Cleo had too much delicacy to do. Cleo never disturbed her while
she was dressing,--and she straightway stopped all operations and laid
her hands resignedly in her lap.

"Well, be quick," she said, with ill-concealed irritation. "What is it?"

In the glass she could see her daughter's quick and intelligent eyes
wandering all about her with the deepest interest, and resting here and
there as if more than usually absorbed, and she frowned again.

Meanwhile, Leonetta, who had not seen her mother's bedroom, particularly
the dressing-table, at such a busy crisis for many years, and who, when
she had seen it in the past had been too young to grasp its full
meaning, was too