I knew that I had never looked worse, and I quite gloried in the fact. I saw Mr. Randolph from his seat near mother glance at me several times in a puzzled way, and Mr. Fanning, after one or two astonished glances, during which he took in the _tout ensemble_ of the ugly robe, began to enter into a playful bear-like flirtation with Miss Armstrong. Dear brown barége, what service it was doing me! I secretly determined that it should be my dinner dress every evening until it wore itself to rags. When the turquoise blue bows became too shabby, I might substitute them for magenta ones. I felt that I had suddenly found an opening out of my difficulty. If I ceased to appear attractive, Mr. Randolph and Mr. Fanning would cease to worry me, the rest of the boarders would accept me for what I was, and my Gordian knot would be cut. Little did I guess! It was by no means so easy to carry out my fixed determination as I had hoped. In the first place, poor darling mother nearly fretted herself into an illness on account of my evening dress. She absolutely cried when she saw me in it, and said that if I was determined to deteriorate in that way, she would give up the boarding-house and go to the cottage in the country without a moment's hesitation. After wearing the dress for three or four days I was forced, very much against my will, to put on one of my pretty black dresses, and the barége made by Annie Starr resumed its place in my wardrobe. I determined to wear it now and then, however--it had already done me good service. I began to hope that neither Mr. Randolph nor Mr. Fanning thought me worth looking at when I appeared in it.