Anna Mantegazza knocked and entered just as Lavinia had finished with her hair and was slipping into the familiar white dress. There had been, within the last few hours, a perceptible change in the former's attitude toward her. Lavinia realized that Anna Mantegazza regarded her with a new interest, a greater and more personal friendliness. “My dear Lavinia!” she exclaimed, critically overlooking the other's preparations. “You look very appealing--like a snowdrop; exactly. I should say the toilet for Sunday at the convent; but no longer appropriate outside. Really, I must speak to the marchesa--parents are so slow to see the differences in their own family. Gheta has been a little overemphasized. “I wonder,” she continued with glowing vivacity, “if you would allow me--I assure you it would give me the greatest pleasure in the world.... Your figure is a thousand times better than mine; but, thank heaven, I'm still slender.... A little evening dress from Vienna! It should really do you very well. Will you accept it from me? I'd like to give you something, Lavinia; and it has never been out of its box.” She turned and was out of the room before Lavinia could reply. There was no reason why she shouldn't take a present from Anna--Pier Mantegazza and her father had been lifelong friends, and his wife was an intimate of the Sanvianos. It would not, probably, be black. It wasn't. Anna returned, followed by her maid, who bore carefully over her arm a shimmering mass of glowing pink. “Now!” Anna Mantegazza cried. “Your hair is very pretty, very original--but hardly for a dress by Verlat. Sara!” The maid moved quietly forward and directed an appraising gaze at Lavinia. She was a flat-hipped Englishwoman, with a cleft chin and enigmatic greenish eyes. “I see exactly, madame,” she assured Anna; and with her deft dry hands she took down Lavinia's laboriously arranged hair. She drew it back from the brow apparently as simply as before, twisted it into a low knot slightly eccentric in shape, and recut a bang. Lavinia's eyes seemed bluer, her delicate flush more elusive; the shape of her face appeared changed, it was more pointed and had a new willful charm. “The stockings,” Anna commanded. Dressed, Lavinia Sanviano stood curiously before the long mirror; she saw a fresh Lavinia that was yet the old; and she was absorbing her first great lesson in the magic of clothes. Verlat, a celebrated dressmaker, was typical of the Viennese spirit--the gown Lavinia wore resembled, in all its implications, an orchid. There was a whisper here of satin, a pale note of green, a promise of chiffon. Her crisp round shoulders were bare; her finely molded arms were clouded, as it were, with a pink mist; the skirt was full, incredibly airy; yet every movement was draped by a suave flowing and swaying.