_Journal_ or _Evening Despatch_ of that date, and read not one but many notices such as this: "At Mrs. Henderson P. Gates' high tea on Monday in the fashionable crush were observed: Mrs. Colonel Pallinder in a toilet of ottoman silk and silk plush in two shades of electric blue, with garniture of chenille and pearl fringes, and a capote of feathers en suite. Miss Pallinder in wine-coloured surah with sleeves and draperies of spotted silk grenadine. Miss Ponsonby-Baxter wore a redingote of crushed-strawberry pekin opening over a brocaded front in shades of the same, with panels of----" No, I have not the heart to go on with the gaudy details of Muriel's panels and passementerie. But I remember that dress well, and, believe it or not, she looked as nobly and placidly beautiful in the crushed-strawberry redingote as had she been draped like the Winged Victory. Mrs. Gates continued her party with a dance that same evening. "The house was all torn up anyhow," Lily Gates told us; "and mamma thought she might just as well go ahead." Muriel and J. B., or Mr. Taylor, as she decorously called him,--he was only J. B. to college mates or others who knew him well,--were sitting out a waltz on the top step of the Henderson P. Gates' stairs. It was a long flight, turning sharply at a little landing to reach the upper hall; and the musicians penned in the alcove behind the steps on the first floor were discoursing "A Medley of Popular Airs," with admirable command of rhythm and expression. "Wh-i-te Wings," "Swee-ee-t Vi-o-_lets_," the sounds travelled up to them as through a chimney. There was a smothering scent of lilacs--the house had been decorated with them--and in pauses of the noise one could hear the window-panes shuddering to the assaults of successive blasts of wind and rain commingled. The spring was early that year. A discreet twilight on the top step held out opportunities for flirtation which Mazie Pallinder never would have neglected in the world; but neither J. B. nor Muriel had any notion of taking advantage of them. The girl was absorbed in a certain dilemma; her even delicate brows were slightly drawn as she studied the pattern of her fan, and wondered how she could lead, draw, drag the conversation around to the desired point. And J. B. was thinking that "Pretty Pond-lilies" was a good waltz, and if it hadn't been so hot, and Miss Baxter something of an armful to pull around--and she couldn't reverse--he would have suggested a turn. He looked at her. It would be desirable, I suppose, to record minutely what Muriel wore that night; I refer you to the columns of the _Journal_; but does anyone remember that full dress in the eighties--in common with dress for all occasions--comprehended those two aids to beauty, "bangs," and "bustles"? Muriel's pretty copper-brown hair was arranged in the fringe down to the eyebrows, the knot low on the nape of her neck, to which