session, she brought out her multitude of boxes and
unfolded her treasures of old lace.

At the time Laura looked on with listless inatten-
tion, but two days later she returned in a change of
mood which put to blush the worldly materialism of
Mrs. Payne.

"Aunt Rosa, you're right," she said, "I haven't
paid half enough attention to my clothes. I believe,
after all, that clothes are among the most important
things in life."

"I regard it as a merciful providence that you have
come to your senses in time," observed the old lady,
with a sincerity which survived even the extravagance
into which her niece immediately plunged--for, after
looking carelessly over the contents of the large white
boxes, Laura turned away as if disappointed, and
demanded in her next breath a sable coat.

" Arnold admired a woman in a sable coat yester-
day," she said, with a gravity which impressed Mrs.
Payne as almost solemn.

But her reaction into the vanities of the world was
as short lived as her former disdain of them; and by
the time the sable coat arrived she had almost begun
to regret that she had ever asked for it. Since the
selection of it she had heard Kemper quite as care-
lessly express approval of an ermine wrap, and her
heart had suddenly sickened over the fruitlessness of
her ambition. She was still trying on the coat under
Mrs. Payne's eyes, when Gerty, coming in, as she
announced, to deliver a message, paused in the centre
of the room as if petrified into an attitude of ad-
miration.

"My dear, you're so gorgeous that you look like

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