Somehow I didn't enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner, and when I was
ready I stood before the mirror and looked at myself a long time. I was
very tall and slim and--well, I suppose I might say regal in that
amethyst crêpe with the soft rose-point, but I looked to myself about
the eyes as I had been doing for years. And to-night that Rene triumph
made me feel no different from one of Miss Hettie Primm's conceptions
that I had been wearing for ages with indifference and total lack of
style. I shrugged my shoulder with what I thought was sadness, though it
felt a trifle like temper, too, and went on down into the garden to see
if any of my flowers had a cheer-up message for me.

But it was a bored garden I stepped into just as the last purple flush
of day was being drunk down by the night. The tall white lilies laid
their heads over on my breast and went to sleep before I had said a word
to them, and the nasturtiums snarled round my feet until they got my
slippers stained with green. Only Billy's bachelor's-buttons stood up
stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew. I felt
cheered at the sight of them, and bent down to gather a bunch of them to
wear, even if they did clash with my amethyst draperies, when an amused
smile, that was done out loud, came from the path just behind me.

"Don't gather them all to-night, Mrs. Molly," said Dr. John teasingly,
as he stooped beside me. "Leave a few for--for the others." I waked up
in a half-second, and so did all those prying flowers, I felt sure.

"I was just gathering them for place bouquets for--for the girls," I
said stupidly as I moved over a little nearer to him. Why it is that the
minute that man comes near me I get warm and comfortable and stupid, and
as young as Billy, and bubbly and sad and happy and cross, is more than
I can say, but I do. I never possibly know how to answer any remark that