"I'm tired of hearing people wonder why Miss Campbell does not dress more. Simplicity is all very well for school-girls and women who can't afford any thing better, but _you_ can, and you really ought. Your things are pretty enough in their way, and I rather like you to have a style of your own; but it looks odd, and people will think you are mean if you don't make more show. Besides, you don't do justice to your beauty, which would be both peculiar and striking, if you'd devote your mind to getting up ravishing costumes." Much more to the same effect did her aunt say, discussing the subject quite artistically, and unconsciously appealing to several of Rose's ruling passions. One was a love for the delicate fabrics, colors, and ornaments which refined tastes enjoy, and whose costliness keeps them from ever growing common; another, her strong desire to please the eyes of those she cared for, and gratify their wishes in the smallest matter if she could. And last, but not least, the natural desire of a young and pretty woman to enhance the beauty which she so soon discovers to be her most potent charm for the other sex, her passport to a high place among her maiden peers. She had thought seriously of surprising and delighting every one, by appearing in a costume which should do justice to the loveliness which was so modest that it was apt to forget itself in admiring others,--what girls call a "ravishing" dress, such as she could imagine and easily procure by the magic of the Fortunatus' purse in her pocket. She had planned it all; the shimmer of pale silk through lace like woven frost-work, ornaments of some classic pattern, and all the dainty accessaries as perfect as time, taste, and money could make them. She knew that Uncle Alec's healthful training had given her a figure that could venture on any fashion, and Nature blessed her with a complexion that defied all hues. So it was little wonder that she felt a strong desire to use these gifts, not for the pleasure of display, but to seem fair in the eyes that seldom looked at her without a tender sort of admiration, all the more winning when no words marred the involuntary homage women love.