"Not a bit. A gold dress would not be too fine for Eliot's wife," vivaciously. "And you know, dear, at a theater-party one dresses as if for a ball. We shall have private boxes, you know, and every one will want to look nice. Now, you really have nothing fit to wear." Una flushed sensitively, but she knew that it was true. She had nothing fine but the blue silk dinner-dress, except--and her heart throbbed painfully--the sweet, white dress with its filmy laces that she had worn for her strange marriage that starlit night in New Orleans beneath the green trees in the quaint semi-tropical garden. The dress, with the necklace of pearls, lay folded away in the bottom of her trunk. "I have the white dress I wore when I was--married," she said, dubiously. "Perhaps it will do." They went with her to look at it, and they were charmed with the quaint, pretty robe and the moon-white pearls. "You will look lovely in this. Why did you not show it to us before? And you never told us you had such splendid jewels." "Are they splendid? I did not know it. Monsieur Carmontelle gave them to me for a wedding-gift. I have more of them in a box given me by the Jockey Club." They exclaimed with delight when they saw the lovely things in the jewel-casket. There were diamonds, rubies, emeralds, all in the most tasteful and elegant settings. Una gave them _carte blanche_ to wear what they pleased, and accepting the offer in sisterly sincerity, the girls selected each a set appropriate to the costume selected for the occasion. "You will wear the pearls with the white dress, Una, I will take the diamonds to suit the rose-colored satin, and Maud can wear the rubies with the gold brocade!" exclaimed Edith, gayly. "Oh, how surprised Sylvie and Ida will be! They will expect us to look like dowdies, knowing we can not afford new dresses. But we will keep all a secret, and burst upon them Thursday evening in a blaze of glory!" "Agreed!" cried Maud, merrily, and Una's gentle, pensive smile added assent, although to herself she sighed apprehensively: "Perhaps Eliot will not like for me to appear in my wedding-dress. It will remind him of his sacrifice. But I have nothing else to wear." And when Eliot asked her that evening what kind of a dress she would wear, so that he might select her flowers in keeping, she answered, in a half-frightened tone. "White!" "It will suit you," he answered, kindly, but Una thought, sadly: "He would not say so if he knew it was my wedding-dress!" He lingered by her side, thrilled with the memory of the morning's kiss, and waiting to see if she would show him any more kindness. Una was very glad to keep him near her, but she was full of a blushing consciousness that made her even more shy than usual. Oh, that kiss this morning!--how had she dared to be so bold?--and yet she had a passionate longing to repeat the caress. Ida Hayes saw him lingering by his wife, and called him away to sing with her.