“I look like an old fool trying to be young,” Miss Hansford responded, examining herself critically before the glass and declaring the demi-train too long, the skirt too wide and the sleeves too big. On the whole, however, she was satisfied, and, folding her dress carefully, laid it in one of the large packing boxes necessary to hold all her purchases. Her shopping expedition had been very successful, and she only rebelled mentally at her hotel bill for rooms. She paid it, however, and just a week from the day she left Oak City, she sailed up to the wharf in the afternoon boat, poorer by some hundred dollars, but happy in the thought that no one could find a flaw in Elithe’s costume, which was as faultless as a Boston tailor could make it. “Elithe could hold her head with the best of them,” she thought, as she walked behind her through the crowd always down to see the boat come in, and felt her heart swell with pride as she saw how many turned to look at the young girl so transformed that Paul, who was at the landing, did not at first recognize her. He had stopped at the cottage every day during the week, and had been disappointed when he found it closed each time. Something was missing which made his life at that particular period very happy. To bathe with Clarice, to drive with her, to wheel with her, to waltz with her and sit with her on the beach, looking out upon the great ocean, listening to its constant beat upon the sands and talking of the future opening so bright before them was very delightful, and kept him up to fever heat, except when he came down from the Elysian heights and spent a half hour with Elithe. She rested him, and he liked to hear her talk of a kind of life he had never known, but which, as she described it, seemed rather attractive than otherwise. She told him of the miners at Deep Gulch; of the pony they gave her and the rides on Sunday through the wild cañons to the camp where her father held service, and of her once staying there all night with a sick man, who was recovering from delirium tremens. She did not tell him who it was, nor did he ask her. She usually did the most of the talking while he watched her glowing face and her eyes brightening and widening as she talked, and then drooping modestly when she caught him looking at her admiringly, as he often did. He liked to see the color in her cheeks change from a delicate rose tint to a brilliant hue, as she laughed and chatted and grew excited or interested. Clarice seldom or never blushed; Elithe blushed all the time, and he liked it. He was interested in every pretty girl. Elithe was more than pretty and of an entirely different type from most of the young ladies whom he knew and who held rather loose views with regard to what young men should be. To be _fast_ was nothing; to drink was nothing, if their vices were kept in the background, or covered over with gold. Not to drink,—not to be fast,—was no recommendation.