purple flowers, but some yards of it were visible, trailing on the floor. The bird of paradise fan and a muff the size of a barrel completed Fifi's costume.
Madame Bourcet gave a faint scream and Louis almost jumped out of his chair at the show. Fifi, parading solemnly up and down, surveying herself complacently, remarked:
"This is the costume I shall wear when we pay our visit of ceremony to the Holy Father, upon my marriage."
A dead pause followed. Both Madame Bourcet and Louis were too stunned to speak. Fifi, seeing to what a state they were reduced, returned to her room, and being an expert in quick changes of costume, reappeared in a few minutes wearing one of the violently sensational negligées, in which she looked like a living rainbow.
Neither Madame Bourcet nor Louis knew what to say at this catastrophe, and therefore said nothing. But Fifi was voluble enough for both. She harangued on the beauty of the costumes, and their extraordinary cheapness, without mentioning the price, and claimed to have a gem of a gown to
