culous!" said Isabelle. "What would a reception be
without flowers, I should like to know? As it is, I expect it will be a
poor affair compared to the Van Nuys' last week. We never seem to be
able to do anything in proper style. You would better put your new Worth
gown, on the collection plate, Marion, and appear in a morning dress
to-morrow night. Louis would be the first one to be scandalized if you
did!"

"Well but, Isabelle, I had to have something now. I have worn my other
dresses so many times, I am perfectly ashamed."

"Of course, sis," said Louis gravely, "it was a most imperative
expenditure. It is a strange coincidence that you should have chosen
that particular make though. It has always been a fancy of mine that the
Levite was robed in a Worth gown when he passed by on the other side."

"The sufferings must be awful," said Evadne, anxious to relieve Marion's
embarrassment. "I saw in the paper to-day that----"

Mrs. Hildreth lifted her hands in mock alarm. "Pray spare us any recital
of horrors, Evadne! I never want to hear about any of these dreadful
things. What is the use, when one cannot help in any way?"

"You forget, Mamma," said Isabelle with a laugh, "that Evadne revels in
horrors. What would be torture to our quivering nerves, to her atrophied
sensibilities is merely an occurrence of every day."

Louis gave a sudden start in his chair, but on the instant Evadne laid
her hand upon his arm, and its light touch soothed his anger as it had
been wont to soothe his pain.

Evadne Hildreth was climbing the heights of victory. She had learned to
cover her wounds with a smile.

CHAPTER XXVII.

"Who is that calf, Evadne, standing by the piano?" Louis put the
question to his cousin the next evening, as he sought a few moments'
respite from his duties as host at her side.

"That is Mr. Simpson Kennard."

Louis surveyed the fashionably dressed, weak-faced, sandy-haired young
man from head to foot. "He will never get above his collar!" he said in
a tone of infinite scorn.

Evadne laughed. "You must confess it is high enough to limit the
aspirations of an ordinary mortal."

Marion fluttered up to them, her cheeks aglow with excitement. "Louis,
where are you? I want to introduce you to Simpsey. He has just arrived."

Evadne looked after her as she led her brother away. "Poor little soul.
What a butterfly it is! Fancy having a husband whom one could call
Simpsey!"

She started. Her knight of th