She (doubtfully).  But would black gloves do?

He (conclusively).  Of course they would for a thing like that.  Fetch them out, and be quick about it; and bring your money too, for I had better buy the tickets this morning, and then we shall have some choice as to seats.

So it was arranged.  Marjory’s lofty mind did wince a little at the idea of dyed gloves, but she tried not to think of it.  John brought the objectionable kids home in time for elaborate decoration “on their backs;” but, as he watched her in the pauses of his reading aloud, they both observed with anxiety that the black “came off a little,” and Marjory asked him to warn her if he saw her let them go anywhere near her face.

Two children never enjoyed a holiday more than these two enjoyed that concert.  Dyed gloves and all other sublunary trials were forgotten:  Marjory did not touch her face once; and when the happy evening was over, the gloves were put away with a loving pat on their backs, and John had risen ten degrees in Marjory’s respect.

If those gloves had but rested on their laurels!  But if people of genius will not do that, can you expect it of dyed gloves?  Few are the authors who have not followed up a brilliant success with something very like a failure, and Marjory’s gloves seemed to catch the spirit of the times.

Before the two weeks were up which were to restore John to comparatively easy circumstances, and Marjory to respectability so far as her hands went, John asked her to go with him to hear a lecture.  Just about that time he was rather wild concerning natural history, for which, I am sorry to say, Marjory did not care a pin.  She indignantly repelled the idea of a gorilla somewhere toward the top of her family tree, asserting that she preferred to believe that she had descended from so mean a man as Adam, and so curious a woman as Eve, to that:  furthermore, she was indifferent upon the subject.  But there was not much she would not do to please John; so when he asked her to go with him to hear a lecture about the gorilla, she made a face to herself, and said certainly she would.

She consented with rather better grace from the fact that Mr. Pradamite—­such was the lecturer’s euphonious name—­undertook to prove conclusively that man was not descended from the gorilla; but when the little old gentleman walked briskly upon the stage, she whispered John that he would have been a valuable advocate of the theory held by the other side:  he wanted nothing but a little pointed felt hat, with a feather in it, to look very much like a small edition of the original gorilla reduced to earning his living by assisting a hand-organist.