see Tib in her grand rôle!"

Tuesday was a long and weary day for us. We started at every knock, expecting a summons to the janitor's room to receive a package, but none came. We retired much disappointed; and we held a council of war before breakfast. The Roseveldts' butler had evidently proved false to his trust, and the costume was waiting for us at the family mansion on Fifth Avenue.

"I will ask Madame at breakfast to excuse me from my morning lessons to do an important errand," said Witch Winnie; "I will tell her the entire story, and I know that, rather than disappoint us all, she will let us go to the Roseveldts' for the things."

Madame proved to be in good-humor, and on reading Milly's letter readily gave Winnie and me the desired permission, sending for a hansom to take us to our destination. All of the Hornets at the lower end of the table heard this conversation, and Adelaide thought that Cynthia Vaughn turned green with envy. An hour later, as we came down the front stairs to take our hansom, Cerberus popped his head from his office to tell us that a package had just been received for Miss Adelaide Armstrong. "Come back, girls!" Adelaide cried excitedly; "here is the costume. It can be nothing else. My, what a big bundle!"

We carried it between us in triumph up the staircase. The Hornets were clustered on the very top landing; their faces peered over the balustrade, and as they caught sight of our procession a peal of derisive laughter echoed through the hall as they scuttled away to their nest under the eaves.

"Those Hornets have certainly gone crazy," Emma Jane remarked, practically. She was carrying her corner of the package, and was as interested as the rest of us in the arrival of the costume. We entered our study-parlor in suppressed excitement, and impatiently cut the knots, and tore open the wrappings, when, behold! another package, scrupulously tied. This paper removed revealed another, then another, and another, and the fact slowly dawned upon us that we had been victimized. "Girls!" exclaimed Witch Winnie, sitting down on the floor in despair, "it's a wicked sell of those Hornets: there is nothing here."

Emma Jane Anton kept on methodically removing the wrappers and folding them neatly. "Perhaps," suggested Adelaide, "they have merely arranged this hoax to fool us, and the costume is still at the Roseveldts'."

"It's just like that Cynthia Vaughn to do such a thing; we'll go, all the same," Witch Winnie replied, rising hopefully and tying on her veil. At this juncture Emma Jane reached a pasteboard box marked "Violet velvet court dress." Lifting the lid discovered a quantity of trash. An empty sardine-box bore the label "Diamond Crown;" a dilapidated bustle was marked "Brussels point lace;" a mixed-pickle bottle was filled with apple-parings and labeled "Old repoussé châtelaine, reign of Arthur I.; the real article; must be returned."

A howl of mingled laughter and dismay rose from our corner. "Cynthia Vaughn wrote that letter which purported to be from Milly. Well, it's a real good practical joke, anyway," said Witch Winnie; "better than I thought the Hornets could get up without my help. Let us show them that we can take a joke, and good-naturedly acknowledge ourselves sold."

"And in the mean time what am I to do for a costume? You know the tableaux come off to-night."

"That puts another face on the matter."

"I suppose Cynthia would be only too glad to take the part even now."

"After all we have said, and your name printed on the programme—never!" This from Adelaide.

"I'll tell you what we will do," suggested Winnie; "the hansom is still waiting at the door; Tib and I will drive to a costumer's and hire something. I found the address of a place on the Bowery the other day and fortunately saved it. Hold your heads up high; we will not acknowledge ourselves defeated yet."

As Witch Winnie and I sped out of the quiet square and down the great teeming thoroughfare, the Elevated trains jarring overhead and the motley crowd surging about us, a misgiving of conscience swept over me. What would Madame say? This was not what we had obtained permission to do. This was very different from Fifth Avenue, and not at all a quarter of the city in which young ladies should be wandering without chaperons.

We were quite desperate, however, and it seemed too late to turn back. The hansom stopped before a Hebrew misfit clothing store where dress suits were announced as on hire by the evening. Flaunting placards above told that costumes for the theatrical profession and for fancy balls were to be let in the fourth story. We climbed a dirty staircase, and after knocking by mistake at an intelligence office for Dienst Mädchen, a hair-dyeing and complexion-enameling rooms, a chiropodist's, and a clairvoyant's, we found ourselves in a room piled from floor to ceiling with costumes. A fat German, who looked as if he were some second-hand piece of furniture, very much soiled as to his linen, and the worse for wear as to his physical mechanism, admitted us and did the honors of the establishment. I glanced around at the motley objects which filled the wareroom; gaudy spangled dresses, with a sprinkle of saw-dust (suggestive of the arena) clinging to the worn cotton velvet, many-ruffled shockingly brief skirts of rose-colored gauze that had spun like so many teetotums behind flaring foot-lights, tinfoil suits of armor that had come in all mud-besplashed from parading the streets at the last grand procession, the faded banners which flapped above them so jauntily, drooping wearily now from the rafters, covered with dust and festooned by the spiders. A row of dominoes dependent from a neighboring clothes-line rustled with an air of mystery, and a heap of masks upon the floor seemed to leer and wink from their eyeless windows.

"I am afraid," said Winnie, drawing nearer the door, "that you haven't anything so nice as I want."

"I haf effery dings, effery dings," replied the ponderous costumer; "you don't t'ink I keeps dose fine procade for the costume ball out here in te tust, ain't it?"

"I wanted something for a school entertainment," Winnie explained.

"So, so; I haf effery dings, I tole you, for de school. Ya, from dose Kindergarten to dot universities. Dings for little peebles and dings for big peebles."

"I should like to know what kind of big people patronize your establishment?"

"Sometimes dose ladies who make de church fair. I have some angel wing for de Christmas mystery, de mask for de Muzzer Goose pantomine. Sometimes dose fine ladies dey make some peesness mit me. When de shentlemen step on dose trail or spill coffee on dot tablier, den I buys dot dress, and my designer she make it all new again. I haf one ferry nice designer; she haf many times arrange ze historical costume for dose grand painting what make ze artists."

"Then I think I would like to talk with her," said Winnie.

"Ya, ya, dat vas right. Here, Mrs. Halsey, Mrs. Halsey! Perhaps you petter go in de sewing-room, ain't it?"

He opened the door into a back room where a sweet pale-faced woman sat sewing little bells on a jester's cap.

We were struck from the outset with Mrs. Halsey's refined appearance, and we were not surprised when she showed, by her complete understanding of what we required, that she had read Tennyson and had some idea of historical periods in costume. She drew a purple velvet robe from a great bundle. I exclaimed in disapproval as I noticed a horrid crimson border.

"But this is coming off," said the little woman, using her scissors briskly, "and instead, I will stitch some gold braid appliqué in a lily