at mad extravagance of the
blue suit, Lise had brought home from the window of The Paris in Faber
Street a hat that had excited the cupidity and admiration of Miss Schuler
and herself, and in front of which they had stood languishing on three
successive evenings. In its acquisition Lise had expended almost the
whole of a week's salary. Its colour was purple, on three sides were
massed drooping lilac feathers, but over the left ear the wide brim was
caught up and held by a crescent of brilliant paste stones. Shortly after
this purchase--the next week, in fact,--The Paris had alluringly and
craftily displayed, for the tempting sum of $6.29, the very cloak
ordained by providence to "go" with the hat. Miss Schuler declared it
would be a crime to fail to take advantage of such an opportunity but the
trouble was that Lise had had to wait for two more pay-days and endure
the suspense arising from the possibility that some young lady of taste
and means might meanwhile become its happy proprietor. Had not the
saleslady been obdurate, Lise would have had it on credit; but she did
succeed, by an initial payment the ensuing Saturday, in having it
withdrawn from public gaze. The second Saturday Lise triumphantly brought
the cloak home; a velvet cloak,--if the eyes could be believed,--velvet
bordering on plush, with a dark purple ground delicately and artistically
spotted with a lilac to match the hat feathers, and edged with a material
which--if not too impudently examined and no questions asked--might be
mistaken, by the uninitiated male, for the fur of a white fox. Both
investments had been made, needless to say, on the strength of Janet's
increased salary; and Lise, when Janet had surprised her before the
bureau rapturously surveying the combination, justified herself with a
defiant apology.

"I just had to have something--what with winter coming on," she declared,
seizing the hand mirror in order to view the back. "You might as well get
your clothes chick, while you're about it--and I didn't have to dig up
twenty bones, neither--nor anything like it--" a reflection on Janet's
most blue suit and her abnormal extravagance. For it was Lise's habit to
carry the war into the enemy's country. "Sadie's dippy about it--says it
puts her in mind of one of the swells snapshotted in last Sunday's
supplement. Well, dearie, how does the effect get you?" and she wheeled
around for her sister's inspection.

"If you take my advice, you'll be ca