‘Oh, I am so sorry!  It is quite spoilt,’ said Molly.

’Never mind!  I’ll take this spoilt bouquet; I can make it up again just as prettily as ever; and you shall have this, which has never been touched.’  Cynthia went on arranging the crimson buds and flowers to her taste.  Molly said nothing, but kept on watching Cynthia’s nimble fingers tying up the wreath.

‘There,’ said Cynthia, at last, ’when that is sewn on black velvet, to keep the flowers from dying, you’ll see how pretty it will look.  And there are enough red flowers in this untouched nosegay to carry out the idea!’

‘Thank you’ (very slowly).  ’But shan’t you mind having only the wrecks of the other?’

‘Not I; red flowers would not go with my pink dress.’

‘But—­I daresay they arranged each nosegay so carefully!’

’Perhaps they did.  But I never would allow sentiment to interfere with my choice of colours; and pink does tie one down.  Now you, in white muslin, just tipped with crimson, like a daisy, may wear anything.’

Cynthia took the utmost pains in dressing Molly, leaving the clever housemaid to her mother’s exclusive service.  Mrs. Gibson was more anxious about her attire than was either of the girls; it had given her occasion for deep thought and not a few sighs.  Her deliberation had ended in her wearing her pearl-grey satin wedding-gown, with a profusion of lace, and white and coloured lilacs.  Cynthia was the one who took the affair the most lightly.  Molly looked upon the ceremony of dressing for a first ball as rather a serious ceremony; certainly as an anxious proceeding.  Cynthia was almost as anxious as herself; only Molly wanted her appearance to be correct and unnoticed; and Cynthia was desirous of setting off Molly’s rather peculiar charms—­her cream-coloured skin, her profusion of curly black hair, her beautiful long-shaped eyes, with their shy, loving expression.  Cynthia took up so much time in dressing Molly to her mind, that she herself had to perform her toilette in a hurry.  Molly, ready dressed, sate on a low chair in Cynthia’s room, watching the pretty creature’s rapid movements, as she stood in her petticoat before the glass, doing up her hair, with quick certainty of effect.  At length, Molly heaved a long sigh, and said,—­

‘I should like to be pretty!’

‘Why, Molly,’ said Cynthia, turning round with an exclamation on the tip of her tongue; but when she caught the innocent, wistful look on Molly’s face, she instinctively checked what she was going to say, and, half-smiling to her own reflection in the glass, she said,—­’The French girls would tell you, to believe that you were pretty would make you so.’

Molly paused before replying,—­

’I suppose they would mean that if you knew you were pretty, you would never think about your looks; you would be so certain of being liked, and that it is caring—­’

’Listen! that’s eight o’clock striking.  Don’t trouble yourself with trying to interpret a French girl’s meaning, but help me on with my frock, there’s a dear one.’