e were to
confide to her his feeling that the chignon which she wore was ugly
and unbecoming, she would probably be induced to change her mode of
head-dress. It was a foolish idea, because, had he followed it out,
he would have seen that compliance on her part in such a matter could
only be given with the distinct understanding that a certain reward
should be the consequence. When an unmarried gentleman calls upon an
unmarried lady to change the fashion of her personal adornments, the
unmarried lady has a right to expect that the unmarried gentleman
means to make her his wife. But Mr. Gibson had no such meaning; and
was led into error by the necessity for sudden action. When she
offered to do anything that he might bid her do, he could not take up
his hat and go away. She looked up into his face, expecting that he
would give her some order;--and he fell into the temptation that was
spread for him.

"If I might say a word,--" he began.

"You may say anything," she exclaimed.

"If I were you I don't think--"

"You don't think what, Mr. Gibson?"

He found it to be a matter very difficult of approach. "Do you know,
I don't think the fashion that has come up about wearing your hair
quite suits you,--not so well as the way you used to do it." She
became on a sudden very red in the face, and he thought that she was
angry. Vexed she was, but still, accompanying her vexation, there
was a remembrance that she was achieving victory even by her own
humiliation. She loved her chignon; but she was ready to abandon even
that for him. Nevertheless she could not speak for a moment or two,
and he was forced to continue his criticism. "I have no doubt those
things are very becoming and all that, and I dare say they are
comfortable."

"Oh, very," she said.

"But there was a simplicity that I liked about the other."

Could it be then that for the last five years he had stood aloof from
her because she had arrayed herself in fashionable attire? She was
still very red in the face, still suffering from wounded vanity,
still conscious of that soreness which affects us all when we are
made to understand that we are considered to have failed there, where
we have most thought that we excelled. But her womanly art enabled
her quickly to conceal the pain. "I have made a promise," she said,
"and you will find that I will keep it."

"What promise?" asked Mr. Gibson.

"I said that I would do as you bade me, and so I will. I would have
do