of "doing up."

Miss Frances Gibbs' dress was composed of a bright rose-pink voile, bought cheaply at a sale, ornamented with a sash of ribbon of an equally vivid hue of violet; and striking it certainly was, in the sense that one felt inclined to collapse at sight of it. Miss Gibbs' figure being of the order which dressmakers call "full," the effect was distinctly startling; and as Fanny had carefully arranged her abundant hair in as many rolls as she could possibly manage, it is to be inferred that she presented a more overpowering effect than ever.

Although, possibly owing to her Italian blood, Toni herself had a weakness for bright colours, on other people, this daring juxtaposition of pink and violet was a trifle bizarre even for her taste; and she looked critically at Fanny as the latter paraded under the gas jet in order to show off the "creation" to its best advantage.

"Well?" Fanny's tone was anxious; and Antonia flung scruple to the winds.

"It's lovely, Fan, and you look scrumptious in it!" She hastily produced from a paper bag a bunch of violets she had intended for her own adornment. "Here, let me pin these in for you, they will finish you off beautifully."

"But they're yours, Toni!"

"Oh, never mind me!" Toni laughed recklessly. "I've not got a Josh waiting for me downstairs—and anyway, I don't much care to wear flowers, they die so quickly, poor dears."

Her own frock, an oft-washed white muslin, was donned in a second. A bright green ribbon round her waist, a pair of greenstone earrings put in beneath the clustering black hair, giving her a quaintly picturesque look, and Antonia was ready for the evening's jollity.

As the cousins ran downstairs together, an appetising smell of roasting chickens came to their nostrils, and Toni sniffed appreciatively.

"I wish Uncle Fred had a birthday every week! Isn't it fun having people in and playing games afterwards!"

"Rather, but I wish we'd been going to the theatre!"

"Well, so do I," conceded Toni, "but anyhow this is better than one of our usual dull evenings!"

Half an hour later the feast was in full progress. The table in the little "front room" literally groaned with good things; indeed, so liberally was it provided that half-way through the meal the butcher insisted on removing the vase of chrysanthemums which stood proudly in the middle on a green paper mat, alleging as he did so that "them flowers took up a sight too much room"—an axiom to which he stuck in spite of his daughter's remonstrances.

Besides the family there were three guests. Mr. Joshua Lee who was engaged to Fanny, naturally had the place of honour beside her; and from that vantage ground he played the part of prospective son-in-law to perfection, removing the plates, running about in search of a mislaid salt-cellar, and generally acquitting himself, so Fanny thought proudly, like a perfect gentleman.

The other two guests were less busy. One of them, Mr. Britton, sat beside his hostess and carried on an animated conversation with her as to the nature and effect of the various patent medicines they had mutually sampled; while the remaining guest, Mr. Dowson, sat next to Antonia, and endeavoured, without much success, to attract her attention to himself.

Halfway through one of his most intimate speeches Toni interrupted him ruthlessly.

"Aunt Jean, where's Lu?"

"Got smacked and sent to bed for stealing jam," her youngest cousin informed her unctuously. "My! She did howl! I guess Ma thumped her pretty well!"

"I did whip her rather hard," confessed Mrs. Gibbs half-apologetically. "I was real vexed with her when I found her with her fingers in the jar! But there, she's been wanting a smacking long enough, and I expect it'll do her good," she finished up cheerfully.

"Poor Lu! And she'd been so looking forward to to-night!" Toni's soft heart was wrung for the culprit. "Did she have any tea, Auntie?"

"Not she. I sent her straight off to bed." Mrs. Gibbs' tone was uneasy now. "And she didn't eat no dinner to-day, she was that excited!"

"Oh, poor Lu! Can't I take her up something, Aunt Jean?"

Mrs. Gibbs appeared to consider the question, though everyone at the table knew very well that her mother-heart had relented towards her darling long ago.

"Well, I don't mind if you do take her just a bite," she said presently; and amid much laughter and sympathetic joking a tray was fitted out with various delicacies and entrusted to the willing hands of Antonia.

Up she went, finding Lu's room in darkness, Lu herself lying sullenly awake, refusing to be comforted.

Her plump little person had strongly resented the force of her mother's stern hand; but her vanity was more severely hurt by the fact that the visitors downstairs would know both the cause and the method of her punishment. Therefore she turned away and pretended to be asleep; but Toni's gentle hand pulling down the clothes, Toni's soft voice murmuring of forgiveness and compensation were too much for the child.

She sat up, disclosing the tear-stains on her round cheeks in the light of the candle Toni carried, and allowed herself to be comforted with alternate bites of chicken and sips of lemonade.

"That's better!" Toni gave her a plate of trifle, and brushed back the tangled curls from the hot little forehead. "Now eat that up and then I must run away. They're waiting for me, you know, so when you've finished you must give me a kiss and go straight to sleep."

"Yes, Toni." Lu lay obediently down, soothed by the girl's kind tone. "I'll go to sleep all right if ... if Ma'll come up and say good-night!"

"Of course she will!" Toni smiled at the child's involuntary clinging to the mother who had punished her. "I'll tell her you're waiting—and now I must fly! Good-night, Ducky, sleep well!"

She kissed the child, her eyes very soft as she bent over the bed; and then, picking up the tray, she ran swiftly downstairs again and re-entered the room where tea was rapidly drawing to an end.

"How kind-hearted you are, Miss Toni," said Mr. Dowson admiringly as she slipped into her seat beside him. "Lots of people would have said the kiddy deserved to be whipped and sent to bed."

"I daresay she did, but that didn't make it any better—for her," laughed Toni, with a vivid remembrance of her aunt's corrective powers. "I know what Auntie's whippings are like, you see, and they're no joke!"

"You don't mean to say Mrs. Gibbs ever dared to ... to punish you, Miss Antonia?" His pale-blue eyes were aghast at the thought of such sacrilege.

"Oh, rather!" Toni laughed joyously at his face of horror. "She's whipped me heaps, of times.... I expect I deserved it, too, for I can assure you I was never a pattern child!"

"I ... I would like to see anyone venture to lay a hand on you," said Mr. Dowson earnestly—too earnestly for Toni's liking. "Miss Antonia, if you ... if you would only give me the right ..."

Bang! An hilariously-disposed little Gibbs had exploded a cracker in the young man's ear; and Mr. Dowson, blushing to the very edge of his extremely high collar, subsided rather wrathfully.

Much to Antonia's relief the party rose from the table a moment later; and with a stern determination in her mind not to allow Mr. Dowson another opportunity to make the avowal which she knew very well trembled on his lips, Toni bustled gaily about, helping to clear the table and make things ready for the evening's festivity.

Mr. Dowson's pale eyes followed her about rather wistfully. To him the white-clad, black-crowned little figure represented a dream—the fulfilment, rather, of an ideal which he had never dared to hope would materialize in his own hard-working, rather grey and sordid life.

Although, thanks to a kindly patron, Leonard Dowson had been able to carry out his desire and qualify as a dentist, he was under no delusion as to his social position. He came of humble, illiterate folk, and he knew well enough that in a fashionable,