The company assembled in the Hall was rather a sleepy one, with scarcely energy enough for discussion. The talk naturally ran chiefly upon the performance, the various haps and mishaps, the successes and failures, the money obtained. Patty and Tom Putnam chanced to stand near each other, and a little apart from the others. She had taken a slight cold from her exposure upon the piazza the night before, and was coughing. "I am very sorry you've taken cold," the lawyer said. "It is nothing," she returned. "But every time you cough," he said with mock-pathos, "one of my heart-strings snaps." "I should think they'd be about all used up by this time, then." "Oh! I tie them up again, after the fashion of guitar-strings." "But a tied-up string cannot give a good sound." "No," he laughed, "only a kind of melancholy 'bong.' But one gets accustomed to any thing." "It is a pity," she said, "that these mortal frames cannot be made with less rigging. Think how much simpler it would be to grow like a crystal, without all 'the bother of all the fixin's inside on us,' as Bathalina says." "But a crystal must have a rather cold existence," he returned. "I prefer our present condition, thank you." "Patty Sanford," called Dessie Farnam, "do come and tell us how to distribute these costumes!" "It seems to me," Patience answered, "that the simplest way is to lay all the dresses out in one of the rooms, and draw lots for choice. Then each person can go and choose, and nobody be the wiser." "I think that is best," Clarence Toxteth assented. "I wonder we didn't think of it. You remember our bet?" "Oh, yes!" Patty replied. "I am as sure of those gloves as if I had them now." Toxteth had somewhere seen or heard of the fashion of betting gloves; and the custom seemed to him the acme of high-bred gallantry. He had accordingly bet with Patty that he should be able to penetrate her disguise at the masquerade. She was determined to win this wager, and had already settled in her mind the costume she should, if possible, secure. Some time was occupied in laying out the dresses, and then the lots were drawn from a hat. The first choice fell to Patty, and the second to Emily Purdy; Ease had the third, and Putnam the fourth. "Now we shall see what we shall see," Patty said gayly. "I'm going to try on all the suits, and take the most becoming." She disappeared into the dressing-room, and after a few moments emerged empty-handed. "Where is your dress?" Emily Purdy asked. "I put it into my trunk," was the reply. "It is all ready to take home that way." Miss Purdy was absent far longer than Patience had been; but a large bundle in her arms furnished a ready excuse for the delay. "If everybody is as long as this," Will said, "we that are at the bottom of the list had best go home, and come over to-morrow. I'm the fifteenth." "I'm two worse than that," Burleigh Blood declared. "And between us, Will, there isn't a suit there I can get into, but my own."