she caught a glimpse of
it on her way up-stairs to Lloyd's room. But she had never imagined such
a dainty rose of a room as the pink and white bower Lloyd led her into.
There might have been a throb of resentment that all such beauty and
luxury had been left out of her life, if there had been time for her to
look around and compare it with her own scantily furnished room at home.

Lloyd hurried over to the bed, eager to display a gorgeous brocade gown
of rose and silver laid out there, which Mrs. Sherman had brought down
from the attic in her absence, and from which Mom Beck had pressed all
the wrinkles.

"It's as good as new," said Lloyd. "I'm glad that mothah wouldn't let us
cut it up last yeah, when we wanted to make it fit Katie. There are pink
slippahs to match, but I hoped you'd rathah weah these. They make me
think of Cinderella's glass ones, and they're twice as pretty."

She tossed the crystal beaded slippers over to Agnes for her inspection.
"Try them on," she urged. "I want to see how you'll look."

In a few moments the shabby shoes and the old brown dress lay in a heap
on the floor like a discarded chrysalis, and Agnes stepped out, a
dazzled butterfly, in her gorgeous robes of rose and silver.

Lloyd clasped her hands ecstatically. "Oh, Agnes, it's _lovely_! And
it's almost a perfect fit. If Miss Sarah can just take it up a little on
the shouldahs, and change the collah a tiny bit, it will look as if it
were made for you. When yoah hair is powdahed and you have this little
bunch of plumes in it, you'll be simply perfect. It doesn't mattah if
the slippahs do pinch a little. They look so pretty you can stand a
little thing like that for one evening."

Lloyd walked around and around her, till she had admired her to her
heart's content, and then led her away to show to Mrs. Sherman. "You
ought to carry yoah head that way all the time," she said. "It's
becoming to you to 'walk proud,' as old Mammy Easter used to say."

It was with the air of a duchess that Agnes sailed into the
drawing-room, and with the feeling that at last she had come into her
own. On every side the dim old mirrors flashed back the reflection of
the slender figure with its head proudly high. She looked at it
curiously, scarcely recognizing the delicate, high-bred features for her
own. There was colour in her face for one thing. The dull browns and
grays, which she wore for economy's sake, were apt to make her look
sallow. But this wond