"Thanks, no," she answered, in her languid, well-trained voice. "My maid can do everything, and you will need all your time to beautify yourselves." They laughed and protested, but lingered in the room, admiring the elegant white satin dress, with its frosting of seed-pearls, the beautiful Brussels veil, and the costly set of pearls, Mr. Langton's bridal gift to his well-beloved niece. Maud did not talk to them much, and Reine Langton's quick eyes saw that she was growing nervous and impatient. "Come, girls, let us go," she said. "It is time to dress, and Maud wants a little time to herself. Remember that this is her last hour of 'maiden meditation, fancy free.'" The gay, pretty troop ran away, nothing loth, to don their bridal finery. Reine went to her own airy chamber thoughtfully. "How calmly and coolly my cousin takes it all," she thought, "while I--I would give my two ears, I know, to be in her place. Oh, Vane, Vane! how cruel you are to me, and how much you despise me. What a fool I am to love you so!" And full of indignant self-scorn, she threw herself into a chair, and wept until her eyes were red, a calamity which necessitated a copious mopping with cologne water. "My looks are spoiled for the evening, that's clear," she says to herself, ruefully. "I shall look a fright; no one will give me a second glance. But who will care for poor Reine Langton, anyway?" But when the pretty bride's-maid dress, Mr. Langton's gift, is on, and the dark, curling tresses are looped back with pale rose-buds and some long, trailing sprays of feathery white, she is well worth looking at. The mellow _brune_ tint of her skin is brightened by the vivid, yet changeful rose-flush on the round, dimpled cheeks; the dark eyes are none the less dazzling for the new touch of dreaminess that has come into their subtle depths beneath the drooping lashes, "like to rays of darkness." Dressing has taken but a little time. It is a process over which Reine never lingers. She adjusts the last flower with one careless glance into the mirror, and goes to the window. The dim, mysterious twilight has fallen over everything. The silver sickle of a young moon hangs in the amethystine sky, the summer air is heavy with perfume and dew. Reine props her dimpled chin in the hollow of one small hand, and falls to musing. To-morrow she goes back to the old dull life of care and labor, to the made-over dresses, the shabby boarding-house, the stupid, stubborn pupils of her village school. These three weeks she has "fed on the roses, and lain in the lilies of life." Servants have waited on her, she has had her time at her own disposal, she has thoroughly enjoyed every hour of it in her eager, active fashion. This brief visit has been like a green oasis in a desert land. To-morrow she will step across its green borders, and journey on through the sandy reaches of a dreary, uncongenial life again.