"More likely," she retorted, "you look at the wearers, and not at the dresses." "No: only at you." Let no reader suppose Burleigh was complimenting: he was only telling the simple truth. Flossy blushed a little at his earnest frankness. "You'd better look at Patty," she said. "She's ever so much prettier." "I suppose she must be," he responded _naïvely_; "but I'd rather look at you. I hope you don't mind." "Oh, not in the least! Why should I? But this is all wool-gathering. Let's arrange about your suit." "But you haven't told me what your dress is." "It's a white lute-string." "Lute-string?" "Yes, of course," she said, laughing at his puzzled face. "This old-fashioned soft silk." "Oh! I thought lute-string"-- "Would be like a guitar-string, I suppose; but it isn't. Don't you remember the dress? It had a square corsage"-- "You'd better not tell me any more. It's an old-fashioned soft silk, and it's white. That is all I could remember. I shouldn't know a square corsage from--from a square handspike." The friendship between Flossy and Burleigh ripened rapidly over that monk's garb. She assumed great airs of superiority and authority over him, which pleased Burleigh marvellously. She climbed into a chair to fit the robe over his shoulders, boxing his ears when he insisted upon turning around that he might see her; being at last forced to compromise by letting him face the mirror, and gaze rapturously at the image of her _petite_ person and pale face. But at last Flossy got so embarrassed, that she declared she must at once be satisfied about the weather, and led him off to consult Mrs. Sanford. "Of course it will be pleasant next Tuesday evening," Mrs. Sanford decided after a consultation with her beloved "Old Farmer's Almanac." "The moon quarters in the west at seven o'clock that very night. I wish," she continued with a sigh, as she returned the almanac to its place, "that we didn't have to change almanacs every year. I just get all my accounts down in one, and its year's gone by. And then I'd like to keep an almanac for association's sake; but I suppose it wouldn't be much good the second year. Things do pass away so in this world!" CHAPTER XXXII. HEADS AND TAILS.