“Yes; all I want is”—­said Leslie, stopping short as she took up the hat that lay there also,—­last summer’s hat, a plain black straw, with a slight brim, and ornamented only with a round lace veil and two bits of ostrich feather.  “But never mind!  It’ll do well enough!”

As she laid it down again and ceased speaking, Cousin Delight came in, straight from Boston, where she had been doing two days’ shopping; and in her hand she carried a parcel in white paper.  I was going to say a round parcel, which it would have been but for something which ran out in a sharp tangent from one side, and pushed the wrappings into an odd angle.  This she put into Leslie’s hands.

“A fresh—­fig-leaf—­for you, my dear.”

“What does she mean?” cried the Haddens, coming close to see.

“Only a little Paradise fashion of speech between Cousin Del and me,” said Leslie, coloring a little and laughing, while she began, somewhat hurriedly, to remove the wrappings.

“What have you done?  And how did you come to think?” she exclaimed, as the thing inclosed appeared:  a round brown straw turban,—­not a staring turban, but one of those that slope with a little graceful downward droop upon the brow,—­bound with a pheasant’s breast, the wing shooting out jauntily, in the tangent I mentioned, over the right ear; all in bright browns, in lovely harmony with the rest of the hamadryad costume.

“It’s no use to begin to thank you, Cousin Del.  It’s just one of the things you re always doing, and rejoice in doing.”  The happy face was full of loving thanks, plainer than many words.  “Only you’re a kind of a sarpent yourself after all, I’m afraid, with your beguilements.  I wonder if you thought of that,” whispered Leslie merrily, while the others oh-oh’d over the gift.  “What else do you think I shall be good for when I get all those on?”

“I’ll venture you,” said Cousin Delight; and the trifling words conveyed a real, earnest confidence, the best possible antidote to the “beguilement.”

“One thing is funny,” said Jeannie Hadden suddenly, with an accent of demur.  “We’re all pheasants. Our new hats are pheasants, too.  I don’t know what Augusta will think of such a covey of us.”

“Oh, it’s no matter,” said Elinor.  “This is a golden pheasant, on brown straw, and ours are purple, on black.  Besides, we all look different enough.”

“I suppose it doesn’t signify,” returned Jeannie; “and if Augusta thinks it does, she may just give me that black and white plover of hers I wanted so.  I think our complexions are all pretty well suited.”

This was true.  The fair hair and deep blue eyes of Elinor were as pretty under the purple plumage as Jeannie’s darker locks and brilliant bloom; and there was a wonderful bright mingling of color between the golden pheasant’s breast and the gleaming chestnut waves it crowned, as Leslie took her hat and tried it on.