"Come, mademoiselle, come to my room, please," and of course I went, making a mock courtesy as if I were a queen, and she my maid. She unpinned my linen collar and unhooked my dress, while I sat wonder struck, saying nothing until I felt the fleecy blue silk being thrown over my shoulders, when I essayed to articulate something. But when my head emerged from the dress, she playfully covered my mouth with her hand, and proceeded to fasten the dress which seemed just to fit; then came the delicate lace and the lemon bow. Taking my hand she led me to the glass, surveyed me from head to foot, clapped her hands like a glad child, and cried, "A perfect fit, but I was afraid." "Why, Clara," I said, "how, what?" "Never, never mind, you like it, I did it myself, and I wore it first only to see how it struck you. 'Tis yours, my dear, go and put it away." I did not say thank you even, for she would not let me. I just kissed her and went to my room, to my little room with its high-post bedstead, three wooden chairs and shabby hair-cloth trunk, and dressed in that beautiful blue dress with that new silk bow. I could not help taking the old one out of the drawer to contrast it with the new, and although it did look soiled and shabby, I thought I was almost wicked to have felt so troubled at my little adornments, and then resolved to keep that little old faded lemon ribbon as long as I should live, and I have it now. Carefully I unpinned that new bow, laying it, with the first real lace collars I had ever owned, in a mahogany box, as tenderly as though they were pearls, and hung the blue Foulard in my closet between my best much-worn alpaca and my afternoon gingham. That night I dreamed that when father went to feed the chickens in the barn yard, a beautiful bird with silky wings of blue fluttered down among them to be fed. How impressible my artless brain! As great an event was this to me, as the inauguration of our highest potentate to the people. Next morning I opened the closet door before dressing, and looked at the new dress. The more I thought about it the more I wondered when or where I should ever wear it, and not until a traveling suit, the fac-simile of Clara's, was dropped upon me did I realize how the blue Foulard was fitted to my shoulders. In her own sweet way she told me, that though we were to remain only a few days at her home in the city, yet her friends would surely call, and I must take the Foulard to wear in the afternoons. Dear little soul, how tender she was of everybody's feelings, and with what true womanly tact she turned, as far as possible, every one into a pleasant path! Quick to notice needs, she always applied her gifts with the greatest grace and tact, and without making any one feel under obligation to her.