George continued, inventing a hobby as he went on, "You must never quit an old dress merely because it has become unfashionable." "My dresses quit me," said Ariadne, dipping her elbow in the ink-pot, so that the hole in it didn't show. "I'm jealous of the sofa! It's better covered than me." I believe Lady Scilly noticed her do this, and though she is lazy, she is kind, and she asked Ariadne when she intended to wear "this creation." "At Lady Islington's," Ariadne answered rather sulkily. "Oh yes, I know. A Cinderella. It is far too good for that sort of romp, my dear child. I have a little thing at home I could lend you just to dance in--it is too _débutantish_ for me, and I do wish some one would wear it for me. If I send it round, will you try it on? And if it will do, keep it, and wear it for my sake. When is the dance?" "The day after to-morrow!" I answered for Ariadne, who was overcome with gratitude, for she knew what Lady Scilly's little dresses were like. Camille's "little" would beat Ariadne's biggest. "Then you shall have it to-morrow, and if you can wear it, do; I shall be so much obliged." Ariadne said "thank you," a little ashamed to think that Simon was coming to tea, and that the only reason she cared about the dress was to dance with Simon in it; but I thought the settling of Ariadne in life, and marrying into a county family, was far more important than Lady Scilly's little jealousies, and wanting to keep Simon to herself, when she got so many, including George, so I told Lady Scilly she was a brick and no mistake, and I really thought so. But Christina thought Ariadne had better try to pull the first dress into some sort of shape, so that she could wear it if the other dress didn't come. "Put not thy trust in smart women!" she said, and as it happened, she was right, for the dress never did! At five o'clock on the very day of the dance, there wasn't a sign of it, and Ariadne hadn't let herself worry over it, by my and Christina's advice. We told her that she had better keep all the looks she had to carry off the home-made dress, for it would require them. She didn't worry, but she was very angry with Lady Scilly, and anger made her eyes so bright, and gave her such a pretty colour, that I felt sure it would be all right. The dress wasn't so very bad either; we had given up all attempt at getting it to fit, and that was better, for you could tell that Ariadne had a very nice, simple girlish figure underneath. Elizabeth Cawthorne came up to see her "girl" when she was dressed, she nearly always does, and she thought the dress sweet. "That'll get him, that'll get him, Miss Ariadne, you'll see!" she kept saying; it was very vulgar, but then, poor Ariadne was so much in love that she couldn't help liking it. She had taken particular care of her hair, and when she lay down to rest in the afternoon, she had put ten curlers in to make sure of it's looking nice. And it did, like Moses in the burning bush.