“Oh, I am not tired watching you, Harriet,” pretty Mollie answered truthfully.  “I was only wishing I had such a beautiful frock to wear to the reception to-morrow.”

Madame Louise clapped her hands.  “Wait a minute, young ladies.  I have something to show you.  You must wait, for it is most beautiful.”  The dressmaker turned and whispered to one of her girl assistants.  The girl went out and came back in a few minutes with another frock over her arm.

Mollie gave a deep sigh of admiration.

“How exquisite!” Harriet exclaimed.  “Whose dress is that, Madame?  It looks like clouds or sea foam, or anything else that is delicately beautiful.”

Madame shook out a delicate pale blue silk, covered with an even lighter tint of blue chiffon, which shaded gently into white.

“This dress was an order, Miss Hamlin,” Madame Louise explained.  “I sent to Paris for it.  Of course it was some time before it arrived in Washington.  In the meanwhile a death occurred in the family of the young woman who had ordered the dress.  She is now in mourning, and she left the dress with me to sell for her.  She is willing to let it go at a great bargain.  The little frock would just about fit your young friend.  Would she not be beautiful in it, with her pale yellow hair and her blue eyes?  Ah, the frock looks as though it had been created for her!  Do you think she would allow me to try it on her?”

“Do slip the frock on, Mollie,” Harriet urged.  “It will not take much time.  And I would dearly love to see you in such a gown.  It is the sweetest thing I ever saw.”

Mollie shook her head.  “It is not worth while for me to put it on, Harriet.  Madame must understand that I cannot possibly buy it.”

“But the frock is such a bargain, Mademoiselle,” the dressmaker continued.  “I will sell it to you for a mere song.”

“But I haven’t the song to pay for it, Madame,” Mollie laughed.  “Come on, Harriet.  We must be going.”

“Of course you can’t buy the dress, Mollie,” Harriet interposed.  “But Madame will not mind your just slipping into it.  Try it on, just for my sake.  I know you will look like a perfect dream.”

Mollie could not refuse Harriet’s request.

“Shut your eyes, Mollie, while Madame dresses you up,” Harriet proposed.

Mollie shut her eyes tightly.

Madame Louise slipped on the gown.  “It fits to perfection,” she whispered to Harriet.  Then the dressmaker, who was really an artist in her line, picked up Mollie’s bunch of soft yellow curls and knotted them carelessly on top of Mollie’s dainty head.  She twisted a piece of the pale blue shaded chiffon into a bandeau around her gold hair.

“Now, look at yourself, Mademoiselle,” she cried in triumph.

“Mollie, Mollie, you are the prettiest thing in the world!” Harriet exclaimed.

Mollie gave a little gasp of astonishment when she beheld herself in the mirror.  Certainly she looked like Cinderella after the latter had been touched with the fairy wand.  She stood regarding herself with wide open eyes of astonishment, and cheeks in which the rose flush deepened.