New Year's Day, among the English, is associated with the giving and
receiving of dinners, and with nothing more. New Year's Day, among the
foreigners, is the grand opportunity of the year for the giving and
receiving of presents. It is occasionally possible to acclimatise a
foreign custom. In this instance Vendale felt no hesitation about making
the attempt. His one difficulty was to decide what his New Year's gift
to Marguerite should be. The defensive pride of the peasant's
daughter--morbidly sensitive to the inequality between her social
position and his--would be secretly roused against him if he ventured on
a rich offering. A gift, which a poor man's purse might purchase, was
the one gift that could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the
giver's sake. Stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds and
rubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the filagree-work of Genoa--the
simplest and most unpretending ornament that he could find in the
jeweller's shop.

He slipped his gift into Marguerite's hand as she held it out to welcome
him on the day of the dinner.

"This is your first New Year's Day in England," he said. "Will you let
me help to make it like a New Year's Day at home?"

She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at the jeweller's
box, uncertain what it might contain. Opening the box, and discovering
the studiously simple form under which Vendale's little keepsake offered
itself to her, she penetrated his motive on the spot. Her face turned on
him brightly, with a look which said, "I own you have pleased and
flattered me." Never had she been so charming, in Vendale's eyes, as she
was at that moment. Her winter dress--a petticoat of dark silk, with a
bodice of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a