"So extravagant, too, on a mild day like this! I really must speak to Mary about using so much coal," said Theo, with a frown. She went on with her sewing, apparently unconscious of the wide-eyed amazement with which Philippa regarded her. The skies were going to fall indeed when Miss Theo troubled herself about an item of domestic economy! There was something rather pathetic about the glee with which the four sisters made their toilets a few hours later. The night's entertainment, which would have seemed so tame and ordinary to most girls of their age, appeared a very frenzy of excitement after their year of hard work and privation. They laughed and chattered like so many magpies, ran about from room to room in lace petticoats and pretty low bodices, and sat in turns before the dining-room fire, while Hope-- happy possessor of natural curls!--heated irons and waved and crimped with such artistic skill that, as Madge gleefully declared, the three heads were `transformations' indeed--far more like toupees than natural growth. Philippa wore her mother's lace, which gave a regal air to the old black silk dress; Hope was lovely, as usual, in her professional white; Madge's "subdued elegance" proved exceedingly becoming; but Theo was distinctly the most imposing figure of the four. She possessed the Frenchwoman's talent for putting on her clothes and adding those little touches which go so far towards making an effective whole, and her sisters exclaimed with surprised admiration as she came rustling into the drawing-room, a chaplet of violets crowning the graceful head, and a couple of black feathers fastened jauntily at the side of the low corsage by a paste buckle, which looked exactly like a family heirloom, and not in the least as if it had been unpicked from the side of a felt hat but ten minutes before. Thrown over her shoulders, too, was quite a vision in the way of evening-cloaks, manufactured out of a summer cape, a lace collar, and the beloved feather boa tacked on as an edging. The cape was unlined, and far too thin a covering for a winter evening; but, girl-like, Theo declared that she was "broiled," and insisted that suffocation would be the result of wearing the nice, warm, ugly shawl which Philippa pressed upon her. The Hermit came upstairs in his dress-clothes, bearing in his hands four immaculate white camellias, which had seemed to his old-fashioned notions appropriate offerings to present to his girl guests. It was sweet of him to have thought of flowers at all, but--camellias! Theo thanked her stars for the violets which she was already wearing, and dashed from the room to warn Madge, who promptly stole the chrysanthemums from the dinner-table and pinned them in a conspicuous position. Hope, of course, was too gentle to refuse what had been meant so kindly; while as for Philippa, to judge by her ejaculations of delight, it would appear that nothing under the sun could have given her so much pleasure.