y mother, coldly and half vexed.

So Mary Strathsay bit her lip and kept the peace.

"Whisht now, child, your turn will come," said Margray, unfolding a
little bodice of purple velvet, with its droop of snowy Mechlin. "One
must cut the coat according to the cloth. That's for Effie,--gayly my
heart's beat under you," laying it down and patting it on one side,
lovingly. "There, if white's the order of the day, white let it be,--and
let Mrs. Strathsay say her most, she cannot make other color of this,
and she shall not say me nay. That's for Alice." And she flung all the
silvery silk and blonde lace about me.

"Child, you'll sparkle!" whispered Mary Strathsay in my ear, hastening
to get the glittering apparel aside, lest my mother should gainsay us.

But Mrs. Strathsay did not throw us a glance.

"You're ill-pleased, Effie," said Margray; for our little beauty,
finding herself so suddenly the pet, had learned to toss her head in
pretty saucy ways.

"Not a speck!" Effie answered up. "'Twas high time,--I was thinking."

Margray laughed, and took her chin 'twixt thumb and finger, and tried
to look under the wilful lids that drooped above the blue light in her
eyes.

"You're aye a faithful pet, and I like you clannish. Stand by them that
stands by you, my poor man used to say. You shall put on as fine a gown,
and finer, of my providing, the day you're wedded."

"I'll gie ye veil o' siller lace,
And troth ye wi' a ring;
Sae bid the blushes to your face,
My ain wee thing!"

sang Mary.

"I want none of your silver lace," said Effie, laughing lightly, and we
little dreamed of the girl's thought. "I'll have that web my mother has
wrought with myrtle-leaf and blossom."

"And 'twas begun for me," said Mary, arching her brows, and before she
thought.

"You,--graceless girl!" said my mother. "It's no bridal veil will ever
cross your curls!"

"Surely, mother, we've said too much,--you'll overlook old scores."

"'T is hard forgetting, when a perverse child puts the hand to her own
hurt."

"No hurt to me. You would not have had me take a man at his word when he
recked not what he said."

"Tsh! Tsh! Charles Seavern would have married you. And with the two
brothers gone, he's an earl now,--and you flung him off. Tsh!"

"I never saw the time, mother, solemnly as I've told you, when his right
hand knew what his left hand did,--what with his champagne-suppers, your
Burgundy, and Johnny Graeme's Jamaica. He'