"I wish I knew the 'German,' I'm going to ask Dell to teach me, she does it beautifully. I think it is so hateful in Olive not to dance, it spoils a set for us, so that we can never dance quadrilles ourselves." "I suppose she has a right to do as she pleases," answered Bea, revelling in the questionable luxury of being as cross as she could. "I don't care whether mama lets us go or not, I haven't a thing to wear, and of course if I don't go, you can't." "Oh, but she will, I'll fix you so pretty, that you'll blush to look at yourself, and you know Mrs. Richards said last summer, that you looked like an angel in white, and you may have quillings off my bolt of footing to put in your basque, and around the pleatings;" and, with these skilfully thrown in words, Ernestine ran off to look over her little collection of ribbons and laces, while Bea turned her eyes slowly to the glass, just as her pretty sister had done a moment before, only not with such an air of perfect satisfaction. "How pretty Ernestine is, and even if she is selfish, she's always so willing to loan things, that any one doesn't think that it's just because she doesn't happen to want them herself. I hope if Olive does go, she will fix up a little," and with a sigh Bea turned away from her reflection, and after covering Jean with a shawl, went down to see if dinner was not nearly ready. If they could have seen Olive, they would never needed to have asked if she was going. All the afternoon she walked slowly up and down her room, sometimes increasing her gait, as the thoughts crowded and doubled the deep trouble in her face; and, in her mind was one thought that mastered every other, and that often formed itself into words and crossed her lips in a whisper of shivering dread. "The sixty days are almost gone, and papa has not got the money! What will he do? oh! what will he do?" Being with him constantly in the store, Olive saw, what he struggled to hide from those at home,--the utter despair that was mastering a patient hope;--and she knew that as the days went so swiftly by, that to him, the end was growing more certain. Once she saw him eagerly tear open a letter, and after reading a few lines, drop his head on his hands, and, unconscious of her nearness, groan despairingly. It weighed on her mind terribly, and her great desire to be of help, faced by the fact of her perfect inability, made her almost desperate, at times.