This page has been validated.
IN A WINTER CITY.
173

already—and what I owe Worth!— not to talk of the Maison Roger———"

"Let me give you one," said the Lady Hilda. "Worth will do anything at short notice for either of us; and I must think this poor Postiche woman ought to see you in a new dress, as she's never to see you again."

"You are a darling, Hilda!" said Madame Mila, with ardent effusion, rising to kiss her cousin.

Lady Hilda turned to let the caress fall on the old guipure lace fichu round her throat, and drew her writing-things to her to pen a telegram to M. Worth.

"I suppose you don't care to say what colour?" she asked as she wrote.

"Oh no," answered the Comtesse. "He remembers all the combinations I've had much better than I do. You dictate to him a little too much; I've heard him say so———"

"He never said so to me," said the Lady Hilda, with a laugh. "Of course I dictate to him. Whatever taste your dress-maker, man or woman, may have—and he has genius—there are