that out; they will just know it’s the same dress with other ribbons, and it’s a social deception which fashionable society-idiots just will not tolerate.  You must appear in a new dress or an old dress, undisguised.  Now, to-night, how was I to know that Mrs. Babbington Brooks could afford to give so elegant an affair, or in fact would be able to induce so large a number of the best and nicest people in town to be present at this, her first entertainment.  People said it was going to be crude, perhaps disagreeable.  So I wore that pale-blue silk—­old shade of blue—­which I almost ruined at the Monday-night German.  When I entered the dressing-room four or five of my best girl-friends affectionately kissed me on the cheek, and exclaimed something about being so glad that I had worn my pretty, pale-blue silk, and that it was so becoming; and was it not that same “love-of-a-dress” which I had worn at the Monday-night German?  Now I really would believe those girls malicious if I did not know they were—­each one of the dear, sweet creatures—­perfectly devoted to me; because they have told me of their devotion many times, and I know they would not say any thing they did not mean—­girls in our set never do!

But this painful fact remains:  my pale-blue silk is not becoming!  I am entirely too dark to wear pale-blue, and I am just dying for a terra-cotta.  It’s the loveliest shade in all the world!  Papa likes blue, so I ordered it to please him, because he is of the opinion that every body looks well in that color, because mamma always looked well in blue when she was young and beautiful.  That reminds me what several old married women said to me at the party to-night:  “O, my dear, your mamma was perfectly beautiful when she was your age!  And she had so much attention, and from such nice young men!” And they looked right at that stupid fellow, for his silent stupidity had driven away all the other men, who were just as nice as any of mamma’s old beaus, too.  But those old ladies could not have meant any thing, because they are dear mamma’s most intimate friends, and I am sure must take a kindly interest in my welfare.  It’s a dreadful thing to have had a beautiful mamma, when you are not considered beautiful yourself, in fact barely good-looking.

But quickly to bed, or I will look what I am, tired and worn-out, at the musicale to-morrow evening.  I must be fresh and well-rested, because I am to play, and alone, a most difficult instrumental piece.  It’s one of those lovely “Nocturnes.”  I wonder if I’ll be encored?  I was not when I played at the last musicale.

The lights are out!  The fire burns low!  I thrust back the little dressing-table, with its pretty oval mirror, beveled edges, and dainty drapery of pale pink silk and pure white mull.  I tenderly take that withered rose from off the floor, where I rudely tossed it in my anger of an hour ago.