a fine rage about what was none of her
business."

"And what did you say?"

"What could I say except to excuse her, because the young man was our
friend, and at last that I was very sorry not to do as they would have
had me to do, but would hear no more. He was ill-pleased, I do assure
thee."

"Were you very sorry, Mary Swanwick?"

"I was not, although I could not approve the young man nor my child's
impertinence."

"Well, my dear, I should have said worse things. I may have my way in
the matter of dress, I suppose?"

"Yes," said the widow, resigned. "An Episcopalian in Friends' dress
seems to me to lack propriety; but as to thy desire to buy her fine
garments, there are trunks in my garret full of the world's things I
gave up long ago."

"Were you sorry?"

"A little, Aunt Gainor. Wilt thou see them?"

"Oh, yes, Margaret," she called, "come in."

She entered with De Courval, at home by good luck. "And may I come,
too?" he asked.

"Why not?" said Mistress Gainor, and they went up-stairs, where Nanny,
delighted, opened the trunks and took out one by one the garments of a
gayer world, long laid away unused. The maid in her red bandana
head-gear was delighted, having, like her race, great pleasure in bright
colors.

The widow, standing apart, looked on, with memories which kept her
silent, as the faint smell of lavender, which seems to me always to have
an ancient fragrance, hung about the garments of her youth.

Margaret watched her mother with quick sense of this being for her
something like the turning back to a record of a girlhood like her own.
De Courval had eyes for the Pearl alone. Gainor Wynne, undisturbed by
sentimental reflections, enjoyed the little business.

"Goodness, my dear, what brocade!" cried Miss Wynne. "How fine you were,
Mary! And a white satin, with lace and silver gimp."

"It was my mother's wedding-gown," said the widow.

"And for day wear this lutestring will fit you to a hair, Margaret; but
the sleeves must be loose. And lace--what is it?" She held up a filmy
fabric.

"I think I could tell." And there, a little curious, having heard her
son's voice, was the vicomtesse, interested, and for her mildly excited,
to Rene's surprise.

Miss Gainor greeted her in French I dare not venture upon, and this
common interest in clothes seemed somehow to have the effect of suddenly
bringing all these women into an intimacy of the minute, while the one
man stood by, with the unending w