actly how the wedding-dress
was cut, and we knew at once, from the fold in the back, that it must
have come from Paquin."

Mrs. Peniston rose abruptly, and, advancing to the ormolu clock
surmounted by a helmeted Minerva, which throned on the chimney-piece
between two malachite vases, passed her lace handkerchief between the
helmet and its visor.

"I knew it--the parlour-maid never dusts there!" she exclaimed,
triumphantly displaying a minute spot on the handkerchief; then,
reseating herself, she went on: "Molly thought Mrs. Dorset the
best-dressed woman at the wedding. I've no doubt her dress DID cost more
than any one else's, but I can't quite like the idea--a combination of
sable and POINT DE MILAN. It seems she goes to a new man in Paris, who
won't take an order till his client has spent a day with him at his villa
at Neuilly. He says he must study his subject's home life--a most
peculiar arrangement, I should say! But Mrs. Dorset told Molly about it
herself: she said the villa was full of the most exquisite things and she
was really sorry to leave. Molly said she never saw her looking better;
she was in tremendous spirits, and said she had made a match between Evie
Van Osburgh and Percy Gryce. She really seems to have a very good
influence on young men. I hear she is interesting herself now in that
silly Silverton boy, who has had his head turned by Carry Fisher, and has
been gambling so dreadfully. Well, as I was saying, Evie is really
engaged: Mrs. Dorset had her to stay with Percy Gryce, and managed it
all, and Grace Van Osburgh is in the seventh heaven--she had almost
despaired of marrying Evie."

Mrs. Peniston again paused, but this time her scrutiny addressed itself,
not to the furniture, but to her niece.

"Cornelia Van Alstyne was so surprised: she had heard that you were to
marry young Gryce. She saw the Wetheralls just after they had stopped
with you at Bellomont, and Alice Wetherall was quite sure there was an
engagement. She said that when Mr. Gryce left unexpectedly one morning,
they all thought he had rushed to town for the ring."

Lily rose and moved toward the door.

"I believe I AM tired: I think I will go to bed," she said; and Mrs.
Peniston, suddenly distracted by the discovery that the easel sustaining
the late Mr. Peniston's crayon-portrait was not exactly in line with the
sofa in front of it, presented an absent-minded brow to her kiss.

In her own room Lily turned up the gas-jet and gl