In a few seconds the counter was strewn with silks at most enticing figures, and the clerk showed them off to such advantage, gathering them so dexterously into elegant folds, shifting them so skillfully in the brilliant gas-light, persuading the lady, in the mean while, in such a clever, lawyer-like way: "These cost us in Paris three times the money I am offering them for, and they are but very little _passe_; there is an extraordinary demand for them; they are going like wildfire; country merchants are ordering them by the score; we sent eighty pieces to Chicago, to one house, yesterday, and fifty patterns to Omaha this morning; one hundred and ten we last week shipped to the South; the whole lot will perhaps be sold by to-morrow," etc.--that poor Mary felt like a speculator on the verge of a great chance. So she decided on a light-green brocade, and could not gainsay the smooth-tongued clerk as he assured her, while tying the bundle, that she had secured a very handsome and elegant dress at a great bargain. The next day Mary and her mother spent in studying and discussing the latest fashion-plates, but the elaborate descriptions of expensive costumes plunged the girl into another state of bewilderment and slough of despond. She heartily regretted having accepted the invitation. She began to dread the party as an execution--to shrink from exhibiting herself to Christian with the fine ladies and gentlemen who would form the company at Mrs. Van Pelt's. However, the dress was cut and made, and in this there was a fair degree of success, for necessity had taught these women considerable skill in the use of the scissors and needle. The dress was trimmed with some handsome old lace that had been in the mother's family for years. Mrs. Trigillgus pronounced the dress very handsome as she spread it on the bed and stepped off to survey it, and even the despondent Mary took heart, and as she surveyed her image in the mirror at the conclusion of her toilet for the important evening, she felt a degree of complacency toward herself--a feeling of admiration even. "You look like a snowdrop, dear," said the mother fondly; and the comparison was not inapt, for the young girl's Saxon complexion and fair hair were in pretty contrast with the lace-decked silk of delicate green falling about her.