d to Myrtle, do you?"

"You!" burst from the admiring Spalding. "Say, you'd make a
red-flannel petticoat look like crepe de Chine and lace."

"There!" said Grace, triumphant. "That settles it!" And she was off
down the hall. They stood a moment in stunned silence. Then:

"But Jock!" protested Emma, following her. "What will Jock say? Grace!
Grace dear! I can't let you do it! I can't!"

"Just unhook this for me, will you?" replied Grace Galt sweetly.

At two o'clock, Jock McChesney, returned from his errand of mercy,
burst into the office to find mother, step-father, and fiancee all
flown.

"Where? What?" he demanded of the outer office.

"Fashion show!" chorused the office staff

"Might have waited for me," Jock said to himself, much injured. And
hurled himself into a taxi.

There was a crush of motors and carriages for a block on all sides of
Madison Square Garden. He had to wait for what seemed an interminable
time at the box-office. Then he began the task of worming his way
through the close-packed throng in the great auditorium. It was a
crowd such as the great place had not seen since the palmy days of the
horse show. It was a crowd that sparkled and shone in silks and
feathers and furs and jewels.

"Jove, if mother has half a chance at this gang!" Jock told himself.
"If only she has grabbed some one who can really show that skirt!"

He was swept with the crowd toward a high platform at the extreme end
of the auditorium. All about that platform stood hundreds, close
packed, faces raised eagerly, the better to see the slight, graceful,
girlish figure occupying the center of the stage--a figure strangely
familiar to Jock's eyes in spite of its quaintly billowing, ante-bellum
garb. She was speaking. Jock, mouth agape, eyes protruding, ears
straining, heard, as in a daze, the sweet, clear, charmingly modulated
voice:

"The feature of the skirt, ladies and gentlemen, is that it gives a
fulness without weight, something which the skirt-maker has never
before been able to achieve. This is due to the patent featherboning
process invented by Mrs. T. A. Buck, of the T. A. Buck Featherloom
Petticoat Company, New York. Note, please, that it has all the
advantages of our grandmother's hoop-skirt, but none of its awkward
features. It is graceful"--she turned slowly, lightly--"it is
bouffant" she twirled on her toes--"it is practical, serviceable,
elegant. It can be made up in any shade, in any m