called with Kendricks, and asked her and Miss Gage to go with us to
the Congress Park concert. Mrs. Deering said that she had to pack,
that she did not feel just exactly like going; and my tender heart
ached with a knowledge of her distress. Miss Gage made a faint,
false pretence of refusing to come with us, too; but Mrs. Deering
urged her to go, and put on the new dress, which had just come home,
so that Mrs. March could see it. The girl came back looking
radiant, divine, and--"Will it do?" she palpitated under my wife's
critical glance.

"Do? It will OUTdo! I never saw anything like it!" The
connoisseur patted it a little this way and a little that. "It is a
dream! Did the hat come too?"

It appeared that the hat had come too. Miss Gage rematerialised
with it on, after a moment's evanescence, and looked at my wife with
the expression of being something impersonal with a hat on.

"Simply, there is nothing to say!" cried Mrs. March. The girl put
up her hands to it. "Good gracious! You mustn't take it off! Your
costume is perfect for the concert."

"Is it, really?" asked the girl joyfully; and she seemed to find
this the first fitting moment to say, for sole recognition of our
self-sacrifice, "I'm much obliged to you, Mr. March, for getting me
that room."

I begged her not to speak of it, and turned an ironical eye upon my
wife; but she was lost in admiration of the hat.