The new coat was in a wonderful shade of apricot,
lined with satin and embroidered in nearly every color of silk.

"Oh, Harriet, how lovely!" Mollie exclaimed.

"Yes, isn't it?" Harriet agreed. "But I really ought not to have had this
coat made up. It has cost almost as much as though I had bought it
outright. And I don't need it. I hope you have not made my dress very
expensive, Madame. I told you to get me up a simple frock."

"Ah, but Miss Hamlin, the simple frocks cost as much as the fancy ones,"
argued the dressmaker. "This little gown is made of the best satin and
lace. But how charming is the effect."

Mollie echoed the dressmaker's verdict as she gazed at Harriet with
admiring eyes. Harriet's gown was white satin. Her black hair and great
dusky eyes looked darker from the contrast and her skin even more
startlingly fair.

Harriet could not help a little smile of vanity as she saw herself in the
long mirror in the fitting room.

"Be sure to send these things home by to-morrow, Madame Louise," she
demanded. "Father and I are going to take our guests to one of the
President's receptions and I want to wear this gown."

Mollie gave a little impatient sigh.

"What is the matter, Mollie?" inquired Harriet, seeing that her little
friend looked tired and unhappy. "I am awfully sorry to have kept you
waiting like this. It is a bore to watch other people try on their
clothes. I will come with you directly."

"Oh, I am not tired watching you, Harriet," pretty Mollie answered
truthfully. "I was only wishing I had such a beautiful frock to wear to
the reception to-morrow."

Madame Louise clapped her hands. "Wait a minute, young ladies. I have
something to show you. You must wait, for it is most beautiful." The
dressmaker turned and whispered to one of her girl assistants. The girl
went out and came back in a few minutes with another frock over her arm.

Mollie gave a deep sigh of admiration.

"How exquisite!" Harriet exclaimed. "Whose dress is that, Madame? It
looks like clouds or sea foam, or anything else that is delicately
beautiful."

Madame shook out a delicate pale blue silk, covered with an even lighter
tint of blue chiffon, which shaded gently into white.

"This dress was an order, Miss Hamlin," Madame Louise explained. "I sent
to Paris for it. Of course it was some time before it arrived in
Washington. In the meanwhile a death occurred in the family of the young
woman who had ordered the dress. She