ulder, and looked lovingly up in his face. "I know you would like
your Rosa to look as well as Mrs. Vivian."

"No one ever looks as well, in my eyes, as my Rosa. There, the dress
will add nothing to your beauty; but go and get it, to please yourself;
it is very considerate of you to have chosen something of which you have
ten yards, already. See, dear, I'm to receive twenty pounds for this
article; if research was paid it ought to be a hundred. I shall add it
all to your allowance for dresses this year. So no debt, mind; but come
to me for everything."

The two ladies drove off to Madame Cie's, a pretty shop lined with dark
velvet and lace draperies.

In the back room they were packing a lovely bridal dress, going off the
following Saturday to New York.

"What, send from America to London?"

"Oh, dear, yes!" exclaimed Madame Cie. "The American ladies are
excellent customers. They buy everything of the best, and the most
expensive."

"I have brought a new customer," said Miss Lucas; "and I want you to do
a great favor, and that is to match a blue silk, and make her a pretty
dress for the flower-show on the 13th."

Madame Cie produced a white muslin polonaise, which she was just going
to send home to the Princess -----, to be worn over mauve.

"Oh, how pretty and simple!" exclaimed Miss Lucas.

"I have some lace exactly like that," said Mrs. Staines.

"Then why don't you have a polonaise? The lace is the only expensive
part, the muslin is a mere nothing; and it is such a useful dress, it
can be worn over any silk."

It was agreed Madame Cie was to send for the blue silk and the lace, and
the dresses were to be tried on on Thursday.

On Thursday, as Rosa went gayly into Madame Cie's back room to have the
dresses tried on, Madame Cie said, "You have a beautiful lace shawl,
but it wants arranging; in five minutes I could astonish you with what I
could do to that shawl."

"Oh, pray do," said Mrs. Staines.

The dressmaker kept her word. By the time the blue dress was tried on,
Madame Cie had, with the aid of a few pins, plaits, and a bow of blue
ribbon, transformed the half lace shawl into one of the smartest and
distingue things imaginable; but when the bill came in at Christmas,
for that five minutes' labor and distingue touch, she charged one pound
eight.

Madame Cie then told the ladies, in an artfully confidential tone,
she had a quantity of black silk coming home, which she had purchased
considerably