gloves, when occasion demanded
such a course. So the merino was laid upon the table, and the council
rose to examine, comment, and suggest.

"A train," said Dolly, concisely; "no trimming, and swan's-down. Even
the Bilberry could n't complain of that, I 'm sure."

Mollie, resting her smooth white elbows on the table in a comfortably
lounging posture, regarded the garment with great longing in her drowsy
brown eyes.

"I wish it was white satin," she observed, somewhat irrelevantly, "and
I was going to wear it at a real ball, with real lace, you know, and a
court train, and flowers, and a fan."

Dolly looked down at her handsome childish face good-naturedly. She
was such an incongruous mixture of beauty and utter simplicity, this
easy-going baby of sixteen, that Dolly could not have helped liking her
heartily under any circumstances, even supposing there had been no tie
of relationship between them.

"I wish it was white satin and you were going to wear it," she said.
"White satin is just the sort of thing for you, Mollie. Never mind, wait
until the figurative ship comes in."

"And in the interval," suggested Aimee, "put a stitch or so in that
wrapper of yours. It has been torn for a week now, and Tod tumbles over
it half a dozen times every morning before breakfast."

Mollie cast her eyes over her shoulder to give it an indifferent glance
as it rested on the faded carpet behind her.

"I wish Lady Augusta would mend things before she sends them to us," she
said, with sublime _naivete_, and then, at the burst of laughter which
greeted her words, she stopped short, staring at the highly entertained
circle with widely opened, innocent eyes. "What are you laughing at?"
she said. "I 'm sure she might. She is always preaching about liking to
have something to occupy her time, and it would be far more charitable
of her to spend her time in that way than in persistently going into
poor houses where the people don't want her, and reading tracts to them
that they don't want to hear."

Dolly's appreciation of the audacity of the idea reached a climax in an
actual shriek of delight.

"If I had five pounds, which I have not, and never shall have," she
said, "I would freely give it just to see Lady Augusta hear you say
that, my dear. Five pounds! I would give ten--twenty--fifty, if need be.
It would be such an exquisite joke."

But Mollie did not regard the matter in this light. To her
unsophisticated mind Lady Augusta re