admiration
on the radiant reflection of herself in the little looking-glass; then,
getting down again, she seized her heap of Minerva Court clothes, and,
before the astonished Samantha could interpose, flung them out of the
second-story window, where they fell on the top of the lilac bushes.

"Me doesn't like nasty old dress," she explained, with a dazzling smile
that was a justification in itself; "me likes pretty new dress!" and
then, with one hand reaching up to the door-knob, and the other
throwing disarming kisses to Samantha,--"By-by! Lady Gay go circus now!
Timfy, come, take Lady Gay to circus!"

There was no time for discipline then, and she was borne to the
breakfast-table, where Timothy was already making acquaintance with Miss
Vilda.

Samantha entered, and Vilda, glancing at her nervously, perceived with
relief that she was "taking things easy." Ah! but it was lucky for poor
David Milliken that he couldn't see her at that moment. Her whole face
had relaxed; her mouth was no longer a thin, hard line, but had a
certain curve and fullness, borrowed perhaps from the warmth of innocent
baby-kisses. Embarrassment and stifled joy had brought a rosier color to
her cheek; Gay's vandal hand had ruffled the smoothness of her sandy
locks, so that a few stray hairs were absolutely curling with amazement
that they had escaped from their sleek bondage; in a word, Samantha Ann
Ripley was lovely and lovable!

Timothy had no eyes for any one save his beloved Gay, at whom he gazed
with unspeakable admiration, thinking it impossible that any human
being, with a single eye in its head, could refuse to take such an angel
when it was in the market.

Gay, not being used to a regular morning toilet, had fought against it
valiantly at first; but the tonic of the bath itself and the exercise of
war had brought the color to her cheeks and the brightness to her eyes.
She had forgiven Samantha, she was ready to be on good terms with Miss
Vilda, she was at peace with all the world. That she was eating the
bread of dependence did not trouble her in the least! No royal visitor,
conveying honor by her mere presence, could have carried off a delicate
situation with more distinguished grace and ease. She was perched on a
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, and immediately began blowing bubbles
in her mug of milk in the most reprehensible fashion; and glancing up
after each naughty effort with an irrepressible gurgle of laughter, in
which sh