“If you could manage to bring it me to-morrow I should be very glad,” said Juliet, who, once having broken the ice, talked about the loan with easy frankness. “I must have a new frock for the ball at Medlow. They are to have a ball on the first of February, the ball of the year. There will be no end of smart people. I want to send Estelle Dawson thirty-five or forty pounds, about half the amount of her last bill. It’s a paltry business altogether. I know girls who owe their dressmakers hundreds where I owe tens. Let me have the cash to-morrow if you can, there’s a dear. Miss Dawson is sure to be full of work for the country at this season, and she won’t make my frock unless I give her a week’s notice.” “Of course, dear, yes, you shall have the money,” Harrington answered nervously; “but your white gown at our ball looked lovely. Why shouldn’t you wear that at Medlow?” “My white gown would be better described as black,” retorted the young lady with marked acidity. “If I didn’t hate the Dorchester people like poison I wouldn’t have insulted them by wearing such a rag. I would no more appear in it at Medlow than I would cut my throat.” Language so strong as this forbade argument. Harrington concluded that there was a mystery in these things outside the limits of masculine understanding. To his eye the white satin and tulle his betrothed had worn had seemed faultless; but it may be that the glamour of first love acts like limelight upon a soiled white garment: and no doubt Miss Baldwin’s gown had seen service. He walked back to the house with her, and left her at the door just as it was growing dusk, and the servants were coming home from church. He left her with a fictitious appearance of cheerfulness, promising to go to tea on the following afternoon. He was glad of the six-mile walk to Dorchester, as it gave him solitude for deliberation. At home the keen eyes of his sisters would be upon him, and he would be pestered by inquiries as to what there had been for lunch and what Miss Baldwin wore; while the still more penetrating gaze of his father would be quick to perceive anything amiss. “Oh, Juliet, if you knew how hard you are making our engagement to me!” he ejaculated mentally, as he walked, with the unconscious hurry of an agitated mind, along the frost-bound road. There had been a hard frost since Christmas, and hunting had been out of the question, whereby the existence of Mahmud, and the bill at the livery stable seemed so much the heavier a burden.