"But, indeed, Gipsy, I am not accustomed to be so gayly attired," said Celeste, anxiously.
"Nonsense! what is there gay in a few white rosebuds, I'd like to know? You shall wear them," said Gipsy, hurrying from the room.
Half an hour later and Celeste's toilet was complete. Very lovely she looked in her simple white robe, fastened at her slender waist by a blue ribbon, her shining hair of pale gold falling like a shower of sunlight over her beautifully white and rounded neck, and wreathed with moss roses. Her fair, rose-tinted face, with its deep, blue eyes, shaded by long, sunny lashes; her red, smiling lips; her softly flushed cheeks, and broad, transparent forehead, bright with youth, and goodness, and loveliness!
"Why, Celeste, you are radiant to-night—lovely, bewitching, angelic!" exclaimed Gipsy, gazing upon her in sort of rapture.
"Nonsense, dear Gipsy!" said Celeste, smiling, and blushing even at the words of the little hoyden. "Are you, too, becoming a flatterer?"
"Not I; I would scorn to be! You know I never flatter, Celeste; but you seem to have received a baptism of living beauty to-night."
Celeste very well knew Gipsy never flattered. Candor was a part of the elf's nature; so, blushing still more, she threw a light shawl over her shoulders, and entered the sitting-room. Both girls took leave of Miss Hagar, and entered the carriage, that whirled them rapidly in the direction of Mount Sunset.
"Gipsy, I know you have some design in all this?" said Celeste, as they drove along.
"Well; suppose I have?"
"Why, I shall be tempted to take it very hard indeed. Why have you brought me here, Gipsy?"