Laura had spent some thoughtful hours upon her black lace dress with results that astonished her family: it became a ball-gown--and a splendidly effective one. She arranged her dark hair in a more elaborate fashion than ever before, in a close coronal of faintly lustrous braids; she had no jewellery and obviously needed none. Her last action but one before she left her room was to dispose of the slender chain and key she always wore round her neck; then her final glance at the mirror--which fairly revealed a lovely woman--ended in a deprecatory little "face" she made at herself. It meant: "Yes, old lady, you fancy yourself very passable in here all by yourself, don't you? Just wait: you'll be standing beside Cora in a moment!" And when she did stand beside Cora, in the latter's room, a moment later, her thought seemed warranted. Cora, radiant-eyed, in high bloom, and exquisite from head to foot in a shimmering white dancing-dress, a glittering crescent fastening the silver fillet that bound her vivid hair, was a flame of enchantment. Mrs. Madison, almost weeping with delight, led her daughters proudly, an arm round the waist of each, into her husband's room. Propped with pillows, he reclined in an armchair while Miss Peirce prepared his bed, an occupation she gave over upon this dazzling entrance, departing tactfully. "Look at these," cried the mother; "--from our garden, Jim, dear! Don't we feel rich, you and I?" "And--and--Laura," said the sick man, with the slow and imperfect enunication caused by his disease; "Laura looks pretty--too." "Isn't she adorable!" Cora exclaimed warmly. "She decided to be the portrait of a young duchess, you see, all stately splendour--made of snow and midnight!" "Hear! hear!" laughed Laura; but she blushed with pleasure, and taking Cora's hand in hers lifted it to her lips. "And do you see Cora's crescent?" demanded Mrs. Madison. "What do you think of _that_ for magnificence? She went down town this morning with seven dollars, and came back with that and her party gloves and a dollar in change! Isn't she a bargainer? Even for rhinestones they are the cheapest things you ever heard of. They look precisely like stones of the very finest water." They did--so precisely, indeed, that if the resemblance did not amount to actual identity, then had a jeweller of the town been able to deceive the eye of Valentine Corliss, which was an eye singularly learned in such matters. "They're--both smart girls," said Madison, "both of them. And they look--beautiful, to-night--both. Laura is--amazing!" When they had gone, Mrs. Madison returned from the stairway, and, kneeling beside her husband, put her arms round him gently: she had seen the tear that was marking its irregular pathway down his flaccid, gray cheek, and she understood. "Don't. Don't worry, Jim," she whispered. "Those bright, beautiful things!--aren't they treasures?"