bronze slipper for a few moments, and then changed the subject by
proposing a walk. "Console yourself with the caramels, my fiery Madge,"
she said, pushing the box across the table, "while I put on my boots. We
will go to Maillard's and get some more while we are out. His caramels
are decidedly better than Huyler's; don't you think so!"

A very busy woman was pretty Mrs. Graham during the next two weeks.
First she made an expedition into the country "to see an old friend,"
she said, and was gone two whole days. And after that she was out every
morning, driving hither and thither, from shop to dressmaker, from
dressmaker to milliner, from milliner to shoemaker.

"It is a sad thing," Mr. Graham would say, when his wife fluttered in
to lunch, breathless and exhausted and half an hour late (she, the most
punctual of women!),--"it is a sad thing to have married a comet by
mistake, thinking it was a woman. How did you find the other planets
this morning, my dear? Is it true that Saturn has lost one of his rings?
and has the Sun recovered from his last attack of spots? I really fear,"
he would add, turning to Hilda, "that this preternatural activity in
your comet-parent portends some alarming change in the--a--atmospheric
phenomena, my child. I would have you on your guard!" and then he would
look at her and sigh, shake his head, and apply himself to the cold
chicken with melancholy vigor.

Hilda thought nothing of her father's remarks,--papa was always talking
nonsense, and she thought she always understood him perfectly. It did
occur to her, however, to wonder at her mother's leaving her out on all
her shopping expeditions. Hilda rather prided herself on her skill in
matching shades and selecting fabrics, and mamma was generally glad of
her assistance in all such matters. However, perhaps it was only