The house became quiet after a time. The rumbling voices in the library ceased and Baggot, with meticulous circumspection, wended his way down the stairs and was gone. Later, Victor emerged from the library and disappeared for the night. Baron, Sr., came in and sat and smoked awhile—and retired. Flora sat in the sitting-room lingeringly, gazing pensively at a book without turning its pages, and at length she arose and kissed her mother’s cheek and said good night.
And then Mrs. Baron tiptoed into another room and rummaged in a bureau drawer and found a gay piece of gingham which had been waiting its time to be useful. With this in her hands she returned to her sitting-room, and spread work materials upon her table. And with patience and fortitude and a kind of rapt self-absorption she worked far into the night.
The usual Sunday-morning quietude of the mansion was disturbed somewhat when the family again assembled. An extraordinary event had occurred.
Mrs. Baron had sat up late the night before and had made a Dress.
In announcing the fact she had pronounced the word in such a manner that the use of the capital letter is fully justified. She displayed the Dress for the admiration of her son and her daughter, and her husband. And finally she generously relinquished it to Flora. “You may give it to her,” she said rather loftily.
Bonnie May had not yet appeared.
Flora, knocked softly on the guest’s door and without waiting went into the room, displaying the new garment rather conspicuously.
“What’s that?” inquired Bonnie May dubiously.
“It’s a new dress for you.”