She swept away over the Turkey carpets of Williams and Edwards' shop, her shiny, undulating black satin train rippling behind her, towards a tall, most immaculate figure in a long frock coat, who was busy comparing scraps of silk with another tall, broad-shouldered young man. Both might have entered a grenadier company and looked all too big and strong for their task. "Excuse me, Mr. Morris," said Myfanwy, with the most superb courtesy, "but I should like to speak to Mr. Pugh for an instant." Having got him to herself, her manner changed. "Merve!" she said sharply. "What price order costume, _panne_ and velvet, my wedding-dress design--you know. I want to make it." "For that lady?" he said, looking across to where Aura stood, feeling as she still felt in shops, utterly shy and miserable. In an instant a hot flush overspread his face, and he turned back to the silk patterns. "Thirty guineas." Myfanwy sniffed scornfully. "You will oblige me, Mervyn Pugh, by having some sense. Look at her! will she give more than fifteen guineas for a dress? Never! and I want to make it." "Five-and-twenty," he said, refraining from the look. He would gladly have stuck to the thirty, and so have driven Aura from the shop, had he dared. But he did not dare. He was under Myfanwy's orders, and, so far, he had had no reason to regret the fact. He had climbed like Jonah's gourd, and was now Williams and Edwards' first buyer. And next year when, after his marriage with Myfanwy (who was now head of the costume department) the additional interest of making money for himself instead of for others had come in his life, and there could be no doubt of their success. He had all the Cymric's fine feelings for feminine fal-lals (which is shown indubitably by the names over the drapers' shops in London) and Myfanwy had a perfect genius for dress. Considering, therefore, the crowds of women absolutely without any taste at all who desire to dress well, the result was assured. He began to wonder how he had ever thought seriously of being a pedagogue, a demagogue, or a minister. "I shall say twenty," remarked Myfanwy reflectively, "it can be made for fifteen, and she shall have it for that in the end. But I want to make it. She is lovely--and I want to know how I shall look in my wedding-dress." "Twenty!" said Mervyn wavering. "I hope it may buy her all she desires as my dress will buy me," contended Myfanwy, with a challenge of lip and eyes. "I will say eighteen, Mervyn, to begin with." With that she swept back to Aura. "It will be eighteen guineas, Madam," she said sweetly; "but if Madam will give us the Mechlin scarf she is wearing to utilise, it will be fifteen."