"O, Guy, you mean; but what is the reason you have your best dress on?"
"Indeed that is the very reason. I don't know for whom I should want to dress, if not for Guy."
"Of course, Ruth, we should do more for him than for anyone, but you are so careful of your good clothes, and so seldom wear them at home."
"Well, I have been thinking perhaps I had better pay more attention to my appearance. Fix up a little more to be like other people, I mean. One feels better satisfied with herself when she is looking well. And then, Agnes, as Guy goes more into society, I fancy he is becoming fastidious."
"Yes, I suppose so," returned Agnes, re-arranging her neck-tie. "How do I look, Ruth; does this dress look shabby?"
"Shabby! one would scarcely know that it is not new. You always look well dressed; but it takes a great deal of fixing to set me off."
Guy's face showed his approbation as he glanced over the table, and his "Why, girls, this is a feast fit for a king!" carried with it, greater pleasure, than the most graceful compliment from other lips could have done. After dinner they walked out together "to see the New Year," Guy said; and the girls felt sure that he must know all the great men of the town, he bowed to so many. Then he was not the least ashamed of his sisters either, Ruth thought, and she became quite animated, so that Agnes, who knew nothing of the reason, wondered at the unusually high spirits. She was very happy, for she was with the two she loved best on earth, and it seemed such a glad beginning to the year. She smiled, talked, and looked to where Guy pointed, seeing beauty in everything, even in the ragged children who begged pennies as they passed along, for an inward light gave the charm, and a sweeter voice than that of brother or sister, made gladness. Several visits were made that afternoon to old friends who urged them to stay for tea; and it would have been pleasant, the girls thought, but Guy appeared anxious to go home, so they yielded very cheerfully. Guy had been planning a delightful surprise for his sisters, and he meant to make the announcement at the tea-table.
"Now for home and an early tea," he said after making their last call.
The girls brightened at the thought that home was really becoming attractive to Guy, and although they had thought it would be pleasant to free themselves from home duties for one evening and enjoy it with their friends, they lost sight of their own wishes in their great desire to please Guy.
"It is the best place after all, isn't it?" said Agnes, looking at her brother, who was holding the door for his sisters to enter. But his hasty, "Yes, hurry up with tea, girls," gave a new turn to their thoughts. Perhaps after all he meant to spend the evening out.