"I will if I can; for, though I wouldn't own this to everybody, I like it in him very much, and feel as if Steve and I should get on beautifully. Here we are: now be sure not to breathe a word if we meet any one; I want it to be a profound secret for a week at least," added Kitty, whisking the handkerchief out of sight, as the carriage stopped before the fashionable store they were about to visit. Rose promised with a smile; for Kitty's face betrayed her without words, so full was it of the happiness which few eyes fail to understand wherever they see it. "Just a glance at the silks. You ask my opinion about white ones, and I'll look at the colors. Mamma says satin; but that is out now, and I've set my heart on the heaviest corded thing I can find," whispered Kitty, as they went rustling by the long counters strewn with all that could delight the feminine eye, and tempt the feminine pocket. "Isn't that opal the loveliest thing you ever saw? I'm afraid I'm too dark to wear it, but it would just suit you. You'll need a variety you know," added Kitty in a significant aside, as Rose stood among the white silks, while her companion affected great interest in the delicate hues laid before her. "But I have a variety now, and don't need a new dress of any sort." "No matter, get it; else it will be gone: you've worn all yours several times already, and _must_ have a new one whether you need it or not. Dear me! if I had as much pocket-money as you have, I'd come out in a fresh toilet at every party I went to," answered Kitty, casting an envious eye upon the rainbow piles before her. The quick-witted shopman saw that a wedding was afoot; for when two pretty girls whisper, smile, and blush over their shopping, clerks scent bridal finery, and a transient gleam of interest brightens their imperturbable countenances, and lends a brief energy to languid voices weary with crying "Cash!" Gathering both silks with a practised turn of the hand, he held them up for inspection, detecting at a glance which was the bride-elect and which the friend; for Kitty fell back to study the effect of the silvery white folds with an absorbing interest impossible to mistake, while Rose sat looking at the opal as if she scarcely heard a bland voice saying, with the rustle of silk so dear to girlish ears,-- "A superb thing; just opened; all the rage in Paris; very rare shade; trying to most, as the lady says, but quite perfect for a blonde." Rose was not listening to those words, but to others which Aunt Clara had lately uttered; laughed at then, but thought over more than once since.