mit herself to anything until she could be sure that her
seamstress would make a respectable appearance among Mr. Wellington's
friends.

He had requested as a favor that Miss Richards might be allowed this
privilege in return for having so kindly relieved his daughter at the
piano a few evenings previous.

Mona brought the dress--a rich, heavy net, made over handsome black silk,
which had been among her wardrobe for the previous summer, when she went
to Lenox with her uncle.

"That will be just the thing, only it needs something to relieve its
blackness," said Mrs. Montague, while she mentally wondered at the
richness of the costume.

"I have some narrow white taste in my trunk, which I can perhaps use to
make it a little more suitable for the occasion, if you approve," Mona
quietly remarked.

"Yes, fix it as you like," the lady returned, indifferently, adding:
"that is if you care about going into the pavilion."

"Thank you; I think I should enjoy watching the dancers for a while," the
young girl returned.

Perhaps, she thought, she might be able to snatch another brief interview
with Ray. At all events she should see him, and that would be worth a
great deal.

Her nimble fingers were very busy after that running her white ribbons
into the meshes of her dress.

She wove three rows of the narrow, feather-edged taste into each of the
flounces, and the effect was very pretty. Then she did the same between
the puffs of the full sleeves, tying some dainty bows where she joined
them, and finished the neck to correspond.

This was hardly completed when she was called to assist Mrs. Montague
in dressing, and by the time she was ready to descend her good humor was
thoroughly restored, for she certainly was a most regal looking woman in
her elegant and becoming toilet.

"I do not believe there will be another dress here this evening as
beautiful as this," Mona remarked, as she fastened the last fold in
place, her pretty face flushing with genuine admiration for the artistic
costume.

"It _is_ handsome, and I look passably young in it, too; how old should
you take me to be Ruth?" Mrs. Montague asked, with a smiling glance at
her own reflection in the mirror.

"A trifle over thirty, perhaps," Mona replied, and the little exultant
laugh which broke from her companion told her that she felt highly
flattered by that estimate of her years.

"There!" she remarked, as she drew on her gloves, "you need do nothing
more