For a wonder--_for_ a wonder--Selina, having exhibited her white lace bonnet with the emeralds only twice, came to the conclusion that that "would do." Not that she hesitated at buying another, but that it was so suitable to the green-and-white dress. "And now for---- Oh, stop; I think I must have a new parasol. My point-lace one is soiled, and I caught it in my bracelet the other day and tore it a little. You had a beautiful point-lace parasol here yesterday. Let me see it." "The one you wore looking at yesterday will not do," cried madame. "It is lined with blue: Madame Dalreemp knows that blue can never go with the green dress. I have one parasol--ah, but it is a beauty!--a point-lace, lined with white. I will get it. It does surpass the other." It did surpass the other, and in price also. Selina chose it. It was twenty guineas. "My husband thought I could have worn one of my old dresses," observed Selina, as she turned over some gloves; "he says I have a great many. But one can only appear in a perfectly fresh toilette at a magnificent gathering such as this is to be." And madame fully assented. Mrs. Dalrymple went to the breakfast, and she and her attire were lovely amidst the lovely, exciting no end of admiration. Very gratifying to her heart, then topsy-turvy with vanity. And so it went on to the end of the season, and her pleasurable course was never checked. When they were preparing to return to the Grange, and her maid was driven wild with perplexity as to the stowing away of so extensive a wardrobe, and conjecturing that the carriage down of it would alone come to "something," it occurred to Selina, as she sat watching, that the original cost would also come to "something." Some hundreds, she feared, now she came to see the whole collection in a mass. "Of course I shall not let Oscar see the bill," she soliloquized. "I'll get it from madame before I leave: and then there'll be no fear of its coming to him at the Grange." Mrs. Dalrymple asked for the bill; and madame, under protest that there was no hurry in the world, promised to send it in. Selina was alone, sitting in the drawing-room by twilight, when the account was delivered to her; it was enclosed in a large thick envelope, with an imposing red seal. She opened it somewhat eagerly. "What makes it such a bulk?" she thought. "Oh, I see; she has detailed the things." Holding it close to the window, she looked at the bottom of the page, and saw ninety-four pounds. "Ninety-four pounds!" ejaculated Selina. "What does madame mean? It must be much more than that." She lighted the little taper on her writing-table; and then found she had been looking at one item only--the Venice point-lace for the decoration of a dress. So she turned the page and looked at the foot of the next. "Antique robe, lace trimmings, and sapphire buttons, one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Tush!" impatiently exclaimed Selina.