HAVING decided that Laura was to be married
on the nineteenth of December, Mrs. Payne had
gathered not only the invitations, but the entire
trousseau into the house three weeks before the date
upon which she had fixed. Laura, who had at first
entered enthusiastically into the question of clothes,
had shown during the last fortnight an indifference
which was almost an open avoidance of the subject;
and the lively old lady was forced to conduct an un-
supported campaign against dressmakers and milliners.

"It's fortunate, to put it mildly, my dear, that you
have me to attend to such matters," she remarked
one day, "or you would most likely have started
on your wedding journey a dowd--and there can be
no happy marriage," she concluded with caustic phil-
osophy, "which is not founded upon a carefully
selected trousseau."

"If his love for me depends on clothes, I don't
want it," replied Laura in an indignant voice.

Mrs. Payne shook her false gray curls, until the
little wire hairpins which held them in place slipped
out and dropped into her lap.

"It might very well depend upon something more
difficult to procure," she retorted with reason. Then
in a last effort to arouse Laura into the pride of pos-

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