prise: "Why, Mac! I didn't know you
could be so elegant!"

"A fellow can be almost anything he likes if he tries hard enough," he
answered, standing very straight and looking so tall and dignified
that Rose was quite impressed, and with a stately courtesy she retired,
saying graciously: "I accept with thanks. Good morning, Dr. Alexander
Mackenzie Campbell."

When Friday evening came and word was sent up that her escort had
arrived, Rose ran down, devoutly hoping that he had not come in a
velveteen jacket, top-boots, black gloves, or made any trifling mistake
of that sort. A young gentleman was standing before the long mirror,
apparently intent upon the arrangement of his hair, and Rose paused
suddenly as her eye went from the glossy broadcloth to the white-gloved
hands, busy with an unruly lock that would not stay in place.

"Why, Charlie, I thought--" she began with an accent of surprise in her
voice, but got no further, for the gentleman turned and she beheld Mac
in immaculate evening costume, with his hair parted sweetly on his brow,
a superior posy at his buttonhole, and the expression of a martyr on his
face.

"Ah, don't you wish it was? No one but yourself to thank that it isn't
he. Am I right? Dandy got me up, and he ought to know what is what,"
demanded Mac, folding his hands and standing as stiff as a ramrod.

"You are so regularly splendid that I don't know you."

"Neither do I."

"I really had no idea you could look so like a gentleman," added Rose,
surveying him with great approval.

"Nor that I could feel so like a fool."

"Poor boy! He does look rather miserable. What can I do to cheer him up
in return for the sacrifice he is making?"

"Stop calling me a boy. It will soothe my agony immensely and give me
courage to appear in a low-necked coat and curl on my forehead, for I'm
not used to such elegancies and I find them no end of a trial."

Mac spoke in such a pathetic tone, and gave such a gloomy glare at the
aforesaid curl, that Rose laughed in his face and added to his woe
by handing him her cloak. He surveyed it gravely for a minute, then
carefully put it on wrong side out and gave the swan's-down hood a good
pull over the head, to the utter destruction of all smoothness to the
curls inside.

Rose uttered a cry and cast off the cloak, bidding him learn to do it
properly, which he meekly did and then led her down the hall without
walking on her skirts more than three times on the way. But a