A young gentleman was standing before the long mirror, apparently intent upon the arrangement of his hair, and Rose paused suddenly as her eye went from the glossy broadcloth to the white-gloved hands, busy with an unruly lock that would not stay in place.
"Why, Charlie, I thought--" she began with an accent of surprise in her voice, but got no further, for the gentleman turned and she beheld Mac in immaculate evening costume, with his hair parted sweetly on his brow, a superior posy at his buttonhole, and the expression of a martyr on his face.
"Ah, don't you wish it was?
No one but yourself to thank that it isn't he.

Am I right?
Dandy got me up, and he ought to know what is what," demanded Mac, folding his hands and standing as stiff as a ramrod.
"You are so regularly splendid that I don't know you." "Neither do I." "I really had no idea you could look so like a gentleman," added Rose, surveying him with great approval.
"Nor that I could feel so like a fool." "Poor boy! He does look rather miserable.

What can I do to cheer him up in return for the sacrifice he is making ?" "Stop calling me a boy.

It will soothe my agony immensely and give me courage to appear in a low-necked coat and curl on my forehead, for I'm not used to such elegancies and I find them no end of a trial." Mac spoke in such a pathetic tone, and gave such a gloomy glare at the aforesaid curl, that Rose laughed in his face and added to his woe by handing him her cloak.

He surveyed it gravely for a minute, then carefully put it on wrong side out and gave the swan's-down hood a good pull over the head, to the utter destruction of all smoothness to the curls inside.
Rose uttered a cry and cast off the cloak, bidding him learn to do it properly, which he meekly did and then led her down the hall without walking on her skirts more than three times on the way.