."

Priscilla threw back her head and laughed merrily.

"I can understand why people say your style is so absorbing," she said
presently; "you make even the absurd seem probable."

"Who have you heard comment on my style?" Boswell leaned forward. He was
as sensitive as a child about his work.

"Oh, one of the doctors at St. Albans told me that, to him, you were the
Hans Christian Andersen of grown-ups. He always reads you after a long
strain."

A flush touched the sallow cheeks, and the long, white fingers tapped the
chair arms nervously.

"Well!" with a satisfied laugh, "I can prove the amount to your credit in
this case without resorting to my style. Would you mind going into your
old room and looking at the box that you will find on the couch?"

Priscilla ran lightly from the study, her eyes and cheeks telling the
story of her delight.

The box was uncovered. Some sympathetic hand, as fine as a woman's, had
bared the secret for her. No mother could possibly have thought out
detail and perfection more minutely. There it lay, the gift of a generous
man to a lonely girl, everything for her graduating night! The filmy gown
with its touch of colour in embroidered thistle flowers; the slippers and
gloves; even the lace scarf, cloud-like and alluring; the long gloves and
silken hose.

Down beside the couch Priscilla knelt and pressed her head against the
sacred gift. She did not cry nor laugh, but the rapt look that used to
mark her hours before the shrine in Kenmore grew and grew upon her face.

"You will accept? You think I did well in my--shopping?"

Boswell stood in the doorway, just where a long path of late June
sunlight struck across the room. For the girl, looking mutely at him with
shining eyes, he was transfigured, translated. Only the great, tender
soul was visible to her; the unasking, the kind spirit. Moved by a sudden
impulse, Priscilla rose to her feet and walked to him with outstretched
hands; when she reached him he took her hands in his and smiled up at
her.

"I--I accept," she whispered with a break in her voice. "You have made
me--happier than I have ever been in my life!"

Boswell drew her hands to his lips and kissed them.

"And you will come and see me in them"--Priscilla turned her eyes to the
box--"when I--dance?"

"You are to dance?"

"We are all to dance."

"I have not seen you dance for many a day. If you dance as you once did
there will be only you dancing. Yes, I will come