A modest hint from her maid that "the girls," as women-servants call each other in American households, would like to offer their share of incense at the shrine, was amiably met, and they were allowed a glimpse of the divinity before she was enveloped in wraps.

An admiring group, huddled in the doorway, murmured approval, from the leading "girl," who was the cook, a coloured widow of some sixty winters, whose admiration was irrepressible, down to a New England spinster whose Anabaptist conscience wrestled with her instincts, and who, although disapproving of "French folks," paid in her heart that secret homage to their gowns and bonnets which her sterner lips refused.
The applause of this audience has, from generation to generation, cheered the hearts of myriads of young women starting out on their little adventures, while the domestic laurels flourish green and fresh for one half hour, until they wither at the threshold of the ball-room.
Mrs.Lee toiled long and earnestly over her sister's toilet, for had not she herself in her own day been the best-dressed girl in New York ?--at least, she held that opinion, and her old instincts came to life again whenever Sybil was to be prepared for any great occasion.

Madeleine kissed her sister affectionately, and gave her unusual praise when the "Dawn in June" was complete.

Sybil was at this moment the ideal of blooming youth, and Mrs.Lee almost dared to hope that her heart was not permanently broken, and that she might yet survive until Carrington could be brought back.

Her own toilet was a much shorter affair, but Sybil was impatient long before it was concluded; the carriage was waiting, and she was obliged to disappoint her household by coming down enveloped in her long opera-cloak, and hurrying away.
When at length the sisters entered the reception-room at the British Legation, Lord Skye rebuked them for not having come early to receive with him.