Mona brought the dress—­a rich, heavy net, made over handsome black silk, which had been among her wardrobe for the previous summer, when she went to Lenox with her uncle.

“That will be just the thing, only it needs something to relieve its blackness,” said Mrs. Montague, while she mentally wondered at the richness of the costume.

“I have some narrow white taste in my trunk, which I can perhaps use to make it a little more suitable for the occasion, if you approve,” Mona quietly remarked.

“Yes, fix it as you like,” the lady returned, indifferently, adding:  “that is if you care about going into the pavilion.”

“Thank you; I think I should enjoy watching the dancers for a while,” the young girl returned.

Perhaps, she thought, she might be able to snatch another brief interview with Ray.  At all events she should see him, and that would be worth a great deal.

Her nimble fingers were very busy after that running her white ribbons into the meshes of her dress.

She wove three rows of the narrow, feather-edged taste into each of the flounces, and the effect was very pretty.  Then she did the same between the puffs of the full sleeves, tying some dainty bows where she joined them, and finished the neck to correspond.

This was hardly completed when she was called to assist Mrs. Montague in dressing, and by the time she was ready to descend her good humor was thoroughly restored, for she certainly was a most regal looking woman in her elegant and becoming toilet.

“I do not believe there will be another dress here this evening as beautiful as this,” Mona remarked, as she fastened the last fold in place, her pretty face flushing with genuine admiration for the artistic costume.

“It is handsome, and I look passably young in it, too; how old should you take me to be Ruth?” Mrs. Montague asked, with a smiling glance at her own reflection in the mirror.

“A trifle over thirty, perhaps,” Mona replied, and the little exultant laugh which broke from her companion told her that she felt highly flattered by that estimate of her years.

“There!” she remarked, as she drew on her gloves, “you need do nothing more for me; go now and get ready yourself, or you will miss the opening promenade.”

Mona hastened away to her own room, where she had everything laid out in the most orderly manner, ready to put on, and if Mrs. Montague could have seen the dainty undergarments and skirts spread upon her bed; the costly kid boots and silken hose for her pretty feet, she might have arched her eyebrows more than ever over the extravagant taste of her seamstress.

Mona arranged her hair with great care, as she had worn it on the evening when she attended the opera with Ray, and this done she was soon ready.