irecting him to create for her a ball-dress that should
annihilate and utterly destroy with jealousy and despair the hearts of
her seventy-five rivals; she was young and beautiful; expense was not a
consideration. Such were the words of her chamberlain. All that night,
the great genius of the nineteenth century tossed wakefully on his bed
revolving the problem in his mind. Visions of flesh-coloured tints shot
with blood-red perturbed his brain, but he fought against and dismissed
them; that combination would be commonplace in Dahomey. When the first
rays of sunlight showed him the reflection of his careworn face in the
plate-glass mirrored ceiling, he rose and, with an impulse of despair,
flung open the casements. There before his blood-shot eyes lay the pure,
still, new-born, radiant June morning. With a cry of inspiration the
great man leaned out of the casement and rapidly caught the details of
his new conception. Before ten o'clock he was again at his bureau in
Paris. An imperious order brought to his private room every silk, satin,
and gauze within the range of pale pink, pale crocus, pale green, silver
and azure. Then came chromatic scales of colour; combinations meant to
vulgarise the rainbow; sinfonies and fugues; the twittering of birds and
the great peace of dewy nature; maidenhood in her awakening innocence;
"The Dawn in June." The Master rested content.

A week later came an order from Sybil, including "an entirely original
ball-dress,--unlike any other sent to America." Mr. Worth pondered,
hesitated; recalled Sybil's figure; the original pose of her head;
glanced anxiously at the map, and speculated whether the New York Herald
had a special correspondent at Dahomey; and at last, with a generosity
peculiar to great souls, he duplicated for "Miss S. Ross, New York, U.S.
America," the order for "L'Aube, Mois de Juin."

The Schneidekoupons and Mr. French, who had reappeared in Washington,
came to dine with Mrs. Lee on the evening of the ball, and Julia
Schneidekoupon sought in vain to discover what Sybil was going to wear.
"Be happy, my dear, in your ignorance!" said Sybil; "the pangs of envy
will rankle soon enough."

An hour later her room, except the fireplace, where a wood fire was
gently smouldering, became an altar of sacrifice to the Deity of Dawn in
June. Her bed, her low couch, her little tables, her chintz arm-chairs,
were covered with portions of the divinity, down to slippers and
handkerchief, glo