"I wonder if you will have the same story to relate this time next year?" answers 'Duke, laughing. "The very simplest thing to learn is how to spend money. And now tell me—I confess I have a little curiosity on the subject—what are you going to wear on the twenty-fourth? You will make yourself look your most charming, will you not, Phyllis?"
"I shall never be able to look dignified or imposing, if you mean that," say I, gloomily. "All the old women about the farms who don't know me think I am a visitor here, and call me 'Miss,' just as though I were never married."
"That is very sad, especially as you will have to wait so many year for those wrinkles you covet. I dare say a dealer in cosmetics, however, would lay you on a few for the occasion, if you paid him well; and, with one of your grandmother's gowns, we might perhaps be able to persuade our guests that I had married a woman old enough to be my mother."
"I know what I should like to wear," I say, shyly.
"What?"
"Black velvet and the diamonds," I say, boldly.
Marmaduke roars.
"What are you laughing at?" I ask, testily, somewhat vexed.
"At the picture you have drawn. At the idea of velvet and diamonds in conjunction with your baby face. Why did you not think of adding on the ermine? Then, indeed, with your height you would be quite majestic?"
"But may I wear it? May I—may I?" ask I, impatiently. "All my life I have been wanting to wear velvet, and now when I have so good an opportunity do let me."