Grace S. Richmond You thought to break a country heart For pastime, ere you went to town. —Tennyson.

"Did you say Camellia is going to stop here on her way home?" asked the Gay Lady.

"For a few days," I assented.

The Gay Lady was standing in front of the closet in her room, in which hung a row of frocks, on little hangers covered with pale blue ribbon. She sighed pensively as she gazed at the garments. Then she looked at me with a smile. "Would you mind if I keep to my room while Camellia is here?" she asked.

"I should mind very much," said I. "Besides, I've only two good dresses myself."

I went down to the porch. "Camellia is going to stop and make us a short visit on her way home from the South," I announced.

The Skeptic sat up. "Great guns!" he ejaculated. "I must send all my trousers to be pressed."

"Who's Camellia?" queried the Philosopher, looking up calmly from his book.

"Wait and see," replied the Skeptic.

"Probably I shall," agreed the Philosopher. "Meanwhile a little information might not come amiss. Sending all one's trousers to be pressed at once sounds to me serious. Is the lady a connoisseur in men's attire?"

"She may or may not be," said the Skeptic. "The effect is the same. At sight of her my cravat gets under my ear, my coat becomes shapeless, my shoes turn pigeon-toed. We have to dress for dinner every night when Miss Camellia is here."

"I won't," said the Philosopher shortly.

"Wait and see," chuckled the Skeptic. He looked at me. "Ask her," he added.

The Philosopher's fine blue eyes were lifted once more from his book. It was a scientific book, and the habit of inquiry is always strong upon your scientist. "Do you dress for dinner when Miss Camellia is here?" he asked of me. "That is—I mean in a way which requires a dinner-coat of us?"

"I think I won't—before she comes," I said. "Afterward—I get out the best I have."

"Which proves none too good," supplemented the Skeptic.

"It's July," said the Philosopher thoughtfully. He looked down at his white ducks. "Couldn't you wire her not to come?" he suggested after a moment.

The Skeptic grinned at me. I shook my head. He shook his head.

"We don't want her not to come," he said, more cheerfully. "She's worth it. To see her is a liberal education. To clothe her would be ruin and desolation. Brace up, Philo—she's certainly worth all the agony of mind she may cause you. I only refrain from falling head over ears in love with her by keeping my hand in my pocket, feeling over my loose change and reminding myself that it's all I have—and it wouldn't buy her a handkerchief."

The Gay Lady spent the morning freshening her frocks—which were somehow never anything but fresh, no matter how much she wore them. It was true that there were not very many of them, and that none of them had cost very much money, but they were fascinating frocks nevertheless, and she had so many clever ways of varying them with knots of ribbon and frills of lace, that one never grew tired of seeing her wear them.

The Skeptic sent several pairs of trousers to be pressed and a bundle of other things to be laundered. I got out a gown I had expected to wear only on state occasions, and did something to the sleeves. The Philosopher was the only person who remained unaffected by the news that Camellia was coming. We envied him his calm.

Camellia arrived. Three trunks arrived at the same time. Camellia's appearance, as she came up the porch steps, while trim and attractive, gave no hint to the Philosopher's eyes, observant though they were, of what was to be expected. He had failed to note the trunks. This was not strange, for Camellia had a beautiful face, and her manner was, as always, charming.

"I don't see," said the Philosopher in my ear, at a moment when Camellia was occupied with the Skeptic and the Gay Lady, "what there is about that to upset you all."

"Don't you?" said I pityingly. Evidently, from what he had heard us say, he had expected her to arrive in an elaborate reception gown—or possibly in spangles and lace!

Camellia went to her room—the white room. This time I had no fears for the embroidered linen on my dressing-table or for the purity of my white wall. I repaired to my own room—to dress for dinner. As I passed the porch door on my way I looked out. The Gay Lady had vanished—so had the Skeptic. The Philosopher was walking up and down—in white ducks. He hailed me as I passed.

"See here," he said under his breath. "I thought you people were all guying in that talk about dressing for dinner while—while Miss Camellia is here. But the Skeptic has gone to do it—if he's not bluffing. Is it true? Do you mean it? We—that is—we haven't been dressing for dinner—except, of course, you ladies seem always to—but that's different. And it's awfully hot to-night," he added plaintively.

"Don't do it," said I hurriedly. "I don't know any reason why we should—in the country—in July."

He looked at me doubtfully. "But is the Skeptic going to—really?"

"I presume he really is. You see—he has met Camellia before. He knows how she will be looking when she comes down. He admires Camellia very much, and he might possibly feel a little odd—in tennis flannels——"

"It's queer," murmured the Philosopher. "But perhaps I'd better not be behind in the procession, even if I wilt my collar." He fingered lovingly the soft, rolled-over collar of his white shirt, with its loose-knotted tie, and sighed again. Then he moved toward the stairs.

We were all on the porch when Camellia came down. The Gay Lady had put on a white muslin—the finest, simplest thing. The Philosopher, pushing a finger between his collar and his neck, to see if the wilting process had begun, eyed the Gay Lady approvingly. "Whatever she wears," he whispered to her, "she can't win over you."

The Gay Lady laughed. "Yes, she can," she declared.

She did. Camellia was a vision when she came floating out upon the porch. The Philosopher was glad he had on his dinner-coat—I saw it in his eye. The Skeptic's tanned cheek turned a reddish shade—he looked as if he felt pigeon-toed. The Gay Lady held her pretty head high as she smiled approval on the guest. Camellia's effect on the Gay Lady was to make her feel like a school-girl—she had repeatedly avowed it to me in private.

Camellia never seemed conscious of her fine attire—that could always truthfully be said. Although on the present occasion she was dressed as duchesses dress for a lawn-party, she seemed supremely unconscious of the fact. The only trouble was that the rest of us could not be unconscious of it.

The dinner moved slowly. We all did our best, including the Philosopher, whose collar was slowly melting, so that he had to keep his chin well up, lest it crush the linen hopelessly beneath. The Skeptic joked ceaselessly, but one could see that all the time he feared his cravat might be awry. The dinner itself was a much more formal affair than usual—somehow that always seemed necessary when Camellia was one's guest. We were glad when it was over and we could go back to the cool recesses of the porch.

The next morning Camellia wore an unpretentious dress of white—one which made the thing the Gay Lady had worn at dinner the evening before seem to her memory poor indeed. Later in the morning the Skeptic took Camellia boating on the river, and she went up and dressed for it in a yachting suit of white flannel. It was some slight consolation that she came back from the river much bedraggled about the skirts, for the boat had sprung a leak and all the Skeptic's gallantry could not keep her dry. But this necessitated a change before luncheon, and some of us were nearly unable to eat with Camellia sitting there in the frock she had put on at the last minute. She was a dream in the pale pink of it, and the Skeptic appeared to be losing his head. On the contrary, the Philosopher was seen to examine her thoughtfully through the eyeglasses he sometimes wears for reading, and which he had forgotten to remove.

On the morning of the third day I discovered the Gay Lady mending a little hole in the skirt of a tiny-flowered dimity, her bright eyes suspiciously misty.

"I'm a g-goose, I know," she explained, smiling at me through the mist, "but it does make me absurdly envious. My things look so—so—duddy—beside hers."

"They're not duddy!" I cried warmly. "But I know what you mean. My very best gown, that I had made in town by Lautier herself, seems countrified. Don't mind. Our things will look quite right again—next week."

"What do you suppose she will wear to-night?" sighed she.

"Heaven only knows," I answered feebly.

What she wore was a French frock which finished us all. I had fears for the sanity of the Skeptic. I was sure he did not know what he was eating. He could not, of course, sit with his hands in his trousers' pockets, from time to time giving his loose change a warning jingle, to remind himself that he could not buy her handkerchiefs. But the Philosopher appeared to retain his self-control. I caught his scientific eye fixed upon the pearl necklace Camellia wore. It struck me that the Philosopher and the Skeptic had temporarily exchanged characters.

In the late afternoon, at the end of the sixth day, Camellia left us. The Skeptic and the Philosopher came to dinner in flannels—it had grown slightly cooler. The Gay Lady and I wore things we had not worn for a week—and I was sure the Gay Lady had never looked prettier. After dinner, in the early dusk, we sat upon the porch. For some time we were more or less silent. Then the Skeptic, from the depths of a bamboo lounging chair, his legs stretching half-way across the porch in a relaxed attitude they had not worn for a week, heaved a sigh which seemed to struggle up from the depths of his interior.

The Philosopher rolled over in the hammock, where he had been reposing on his back, his hands clasped under his head, and looked scrutinizingly at his friend.

"Don't take it too hard," he counselled gently. "It's not worth it."

"I know it," replied the Skeptic with another sigh. "But I wish I were worth—millions."

"Oh, no, you don't," argued the Philosopher.

The Gay Lady and I exchanged glances—through the twilight. We would have arisen and fled, but the Skeptic caught at my skirts.

"Don't go," he begged. "I'm not really insane—only delirious. It'll wear off."

"It will," agreed the Philosopher.

"I suppose," began the Skeptic, after some further moments of silence, "that it's really mostly clothes."

"She's a very charming girl," said the Gay Lady quickly. "I don't blame you."

"Honestly," said the Skeptic, sitting up and looking at her, "don't you think her clothes are about all there is of her?"

"No," said the Gay Lady stoutly.

"Yes," said the Philosopher comfortably.

"Yes—and no," said I, as the Skeptic looked at me.

"A girl," argued the Philosopher, suddenly pulling himself out of the hammock and beginning to pace the floor, "who could come here to this unpretentious country place with three trunks, and then wear their contents——Look here"—he paused in front of me and looked at me as piercingly as somewhat short-sighted blue eyes can look in the twilight—"did she ever wear the same thing twice?"

"I believe not," I admitted.

"A girl who could come to a place like this and make a show figure of herself in clothes that any fool could see cost—CÆsar, what must they cost!—and change four times a day—and keep us dancing around in starched collars——"

"You didn't have to——"

"Yes, we did—pardon me! We did, not to be innocently—not insolently—mistaken for farm hands. I tell you, a girl like that would keep a man humping to furnish the wherewithal. For what," continued the Philosopher, growing very earnest—"what, if she'd wear that sort of clothes here, would she consider necessary for—for—visiting her rich friends? Tell me that!"

We could not tell him that. We did not try.

The Gay Lady was pinching one of her little flowered dimity ruffles into plaits with an agitated thumb and finger. I was sure the Skeptic's present state of mind was of more moment to her than she would ever let appear to anybody.

The Skeptic rose slowly from his chair.

"Will you walk down the garden path with me?" he asked the Gay Lady.

They sauntered slowly away into the twilight.

The Philosopher came and sat down by me.

"He's not really hit," said he presently; "he's only temporarily upset. I was a trifle bowled over myself. She's certainly a stunning girl. But when I try to recall what she and I talked about when we sat out here together, at such times as he was willing to leave her in my company, I have really no recollection. When it was too dark to see her clothes—or her smile—I remember being once or twice distinctly bored. Now—the Gay Lady—don't you think she always looks well?"

"Lovely," I agreed heartily.

"I may not know much about it, being a man," said he modestly, "but I should naturally think the Gay Lady's clothes cost considerably less than Miss Camellia's."

"Considerably."

"Though I never really thought about them before," he owned. "I don't suppose a man usually does think much about a woman's clothes—unless he's forced to. During this last week it occurs to me we've been forced to—eh?"

"Somewhat." I was smiling to myself. I had never imagined that the Philosopher troubled himself with such matters at all.

"And I don't think," he went on, "I like being forced to spend my time speculating on the cost of anybody's clothing.—How comfortable it is on this porch! And how jolly not to have to sit up in a black coat—on a July evening!"

The Skeptic and the Gay Lady returned—after an hour. The Skeptic, as he came into the light which streamed out across the porch from the hall, looked decidedly more cheerful than when he had left us. Although it had been too dark in the garden to see either the Gay Lady's clothes or her smile, I doubted if he had been bored.

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