ves and bunches of fresh roses. When at length, after
a long effort, the work was complete, Mrs. Lee took a last critical
look at the result, and enjoyed a glow of satisfaction. Young, happy,
sparkling with consciousness of youth and beauty, Sybil stood, Hebe
Anadyomene, rising from the foam of soft creplisse which swept back
beneath the long train of pale, tender, pink silk, fainting into
breadths of delicate primrose, relieved here and there by facings of
June green--or was it the blue of early morning?--or both? suggesting
unutterable freshness. A modest hint from her maid that "the girls,"
as women-servants call each other in American households, would like to
offer their share of incense at the shrine, was amiably met, and they
were allowed a glimpse of the divinity before she was enveloped in
wraps. An admiring group, huddled in the doorway, murmured approval,
from the leading "girl," who was the cook, a coloured widow of some
sixty winters, whose admiration was irrepressible, down to a New England
spinster whose Anabaptist conscience wrestled with her instincts, and
who, although disapproving of "French folks," paid in her heart that
secret homage to their gowns and bonnets which her sterner lips refused.
The applause of this audience has, from generation to generation,
cheered the hearts of myriads of young women starting out on their
little adventures, while the domestic laurels flourish green and fresh
for one half hour, until they wither at the threshold of the ball-room.

Mrs. Lee toiled long and earnestly over her sister's toilet, for had not
she herself in her own day been the best-dressed girl in New York?--at
least, she held that opinion, and her old instincts came to life again
whenever Sybil was to be prepared for any great occasion. Madeleine
kissed her sister affectionately, and gave her unusual praise when
the "Dawn in June" was complete. Sybil was at this moment the ideal of
blooming youth, and Mrs. Lee almost dared to hope that her heart was
not permanently broken, and that she might yet survive until Carrington
could be brought back. Her own toilet was a much shorter affair, but
Sybil was impatient long before it was concluded; the carriage was
waiting, and she was obliged to disappoint her household by coming down
enveloped in her long opera-cloak, and hurrying away.

When at length the sisters entered the reception-room at the British
Legation, Lord Skye rebuked them for not having come early t