“Well—and if so, Charley—if so? No reason you shouldn’t fly at it and make good right on the ground.” “All right,” her father’s tone was grave enough to mean a great deal more than the present enterprise; he spread out his color-box and paints on the desk, made some further exclamation in a low tone, and went to work. There was silence in the office. Hilda knew that she ought to slip away. She was just going to do so when she saw Uncle Hank purse up his lips, look very fiercely at the needle which he was holding at a considerable distance from his face, finally thread it, and begin to speak, not to her father at all but to something he had evidently propped up on his end of the desk in front of him. It must be that product he had called “a pretty fair Van Brunt.” Shaking a finger at it, he began to sew on some small white object, glancing occasionally over his spectacles toward the invisible doll, murmuring to her: “Now, you set there, Miss—well, what is your blessed name?—Miss Bon Bon—Miss High Stepper—Miss Tip-Top—and mind how you shoot off your mouth to-morrow. Ye want to be mighty clear on one point, and that is that you came from Fort Worth. Pa was just saving a little surprise when he failed to mention you to Pettie to-day. You was right there in that grip of his’n all the time; so don’t let me hear any remarks about a bronco sewing-machine, nor white domestic, nor Charley’s paint-box, nor Uncle Hank’s number forty sewing thread. Mind what I’m telling you, Miss Tip-Top; we don’t want a word of and concerning the spare-room bed-comfort. Fort Worth’s where you come from—Fort Worth; a-bringing the latest fashions in young-lady dolls; and Pettie’s not to be told things.” Such discounting of her delight in the doll! It was a relief to her when, a moment later, her father raised his head to say: “Look there, Pearsall—there are the petticoats and such like.” Charley spread out handkerchiefs of exquisite linen cambric. “And this,” unfurling a brocaded white satin muffler a yard or more square, “there’s enough stuff in this for a frock.” He put down several four-in-hand ties. “Those blue ones are exactly alike; enough of a kind to make the dolly a sash.” “Yes, that’s right, Charley. I’ll sew ’em together and press ’em out and rig her a surcingle of ’em. The Fort Worth doll was going to have a blue surcingle—a blue sash—I ricollect.” Suddenly Hank dropped the ties; a look of perplexity, almost of consternation, spread over his face. “Great Scott, Charley! I’ve just this minute remembered—do you know that Pettie figured that doll was a-going to show up with white kid hands, and tan shoes on its feet—tan shoes! Now, how in time are we going to fix that?” “I’ll show you,” whispered Van Brunt, as he once more hurried out of the room. He was back the next minute, with a pair of heavy tan driving gloves and a pair of white ones.