“Just a very, very little too short, and a very, very little too wide in the waist,” said Dora, repeating her formula. She had flown upstairs after the first moment’s hesitation, and brought it back in her arms, glad in spite of herself to be thus delivered from silence and the sense of neglect. “Eh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, “but it must be an awfu’, awfu’ faithful woman that has minded how a lassie like that grows and gets big, and just how big she gets, a’ thae years.” “There ye are with your moral!” cried the mistress; and to Dora’s infinite surprise tears were on her cheeks. “It’s just the lassie that makes all the difference,” said Miss Bethune. She flung the pretty dress from her, and then she rose up suddenly and gave Dora a hasty kiss. “Put it on and let me see it,” she said; “I will wager you anything it just fits like a glove.” CHAPTER IV. “That is a very strange business of these Mannerings, Gilchrist,” said Miss Bethune to her maid, when Dora, excited by praise and admiration, and forgetting all her troubles, had retired to her own habitation upstairs, escorted, she and her dress, by Gilchrist, who could not find it in her heart, as she said, to let a young thing like that spoil her bonnie new frock by not putting it properly away. Gilchrist laid the pretty dress lovingly in a roomy drawer, smoothing out all its creases by soft pats of her accustomed hands, and then returned to her mistress to talk over the little incident of the evening. Miss Bethune’s spirits were improved also by that little exhibition. What a thing it is to be able to draw a woman softly out of her troubles by the sight of a pretty child in a pretty new dress! Contemptible the love of clothes, the love of finery, and so forth, let the philosophers say. To me there is something touching in that natural instinct which relieves for a moment now and then the heaviest pressure. Dora’s new frock had nothing to do with any gratification of Miss Bethune’s vanity; but it brought a little dawning ray of momentary light into her room, and a little distraction from the train of thoughts that were not over bright. No man could feel the same for the most beautiful youth ever introduced in raiment like the day. Let us be thankful among all our disabilities for a little simple pleasure, now and then, that is common to women only. Boy or girl, it scarcely matters which, when they come in dressed in their best, all fresh and new, the sight pleases the oldest, the saddest of us--a little unconsidered angel-gift, amid the dimness and the darkness of the every-day world. Miss Bethune to outward aspect was a little grim, an old maid, as people said, apart from the sympathies of life. But the dull evening and the pressure of many thoughts had been made bright to her by Dora’s new frock. “What business, mem?” asked Gilchrist.