“Foh!” thought Polly. “Some poor country cousin on the spy for fashion,” for no one can be so haughty as the young person who caters for the high and mighty. What was her surprise to see the head milliner conclude the affairs of a most important dowager in perfunctory haste, with a peremptory, “Door, Miss Quigly,” and advance with the most urgent courtesy to the customer in the plain print gown, with the unmistakable home-trimmed hat, and the not at all pretty face underneath it! “Step with me into the dressing-room, Miss Vibart. I’ve got your _matinée_ ready to fit on,” said Pamela, with a knowing wink. And when the two found themselves together in the little screened off apartment with the big mirror, Miss Pounce scanned her companion’s face with the most searching anxiety. There was something in that face that had not been there before, an emotion between trembling joy and crucial doubt; a colour that fluctuated, a vague and veiled glance. And a smile that wavered. “Well, Miss?” panted Pamela, as the girl, letting herself fall into a chair, seemed to float away on a dream: “well, Miss, how did you enjoy of yourself? Wasn’t my head the prettiest there by a long way? I don’t think the Duchess herself had such a bit of real art, and I ought to know! I’m sure, if you only looked as you did upstairs in that little room when you took off your mask----” “Oh, you dear kind thing, I never took off my mask at all.” “What, Miss?” “Oh, I couldn’t!” “Of all the pities! There, I might as well have spared my trouble, I see. There ain’t a mite of use in trying to help those that won’t help themselves, that’s flat!” “Nay, pray, pray don’t be vexed with me! You’ve been such a friend to me! You’re the only friend I have! Oh, I must tell you! There’s no one in the world I can tell.” There was such real distress in the girl’s whole air, and at the same time, some pathetic hope that seemed to cast a pale beam across her trouble like sunshine on a gloomy day, that Pamela swallowed down her natural irritation and began to feel moreover that her efforts might prove to have been not so altogether wasted after all. More than this, how could she fail to be touched by the appeal: “You are my only friend”? Flattered, too, considering--and Pamela was far too sensible not to consider--the difference in their station. “Oh,” cried the plain Miss Vibart, as if the gentle look the milliner cast on her had been a Moses wand and the spring gushed forth under its touch. “Oh pity! Oh, why am I not beautiful, like Jane? I never envied her before--never, never--but oh, why did I go to the party at all? If I hadn’t known him first, if he had not been so wonderful kind and clever and charming and loving to talk to me, and understanding me so--oh, oh, and so handsome! Oh, I’d never have known what he was if Jane had had him first!”