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Saturday, in having it withdrawn from public gaze.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 careful not to be caught out in th