It was all in vain that Mattie pulled her dress, bidding her sit down as people were staring at her.  Aunt Betsy did not hear, and if she had she would scarcely have cared for those who did look at her, and who, following her eyes, saw the beautiful young ladies, behind whom Wilford and Mark were standing, but never dreamed of associating them with the “crazy thing” who sank back at last into her seat, keeping her eyes still upon the box where Helen and Katy sat, their heads uncovered and their rich cloaks falling off just enough to show the astonished woman that both their necks were uncovered, too, while Helen’s arms, raised to adjust her glass, were discovered to be in the same condition.

“Ain’t they splendid in full dress?” Mattie whispered, while Aunt Betsy replied: 

“Call that full dress?  I’d sooner say it was no dress at all!  They’ll catch their death of cold.  What would their mother say?”

Then as the enormity of the act grew upon her, she continued more to herself than to Mattie: 

“I mistrusted Catherine, but that Helen should come to this passes me.”

Still as she became more accustomed to it, and glanced at other full-dressed ladies, the first shock passed away, and she could calmly contemplate Katy’s dress, wondering what it cost, and then letting her eyes pass on to Helen, to whom Mark Ray seemed so loverlike that Aunt Betsy remembered her impressions when he stopped at Silverton, her heart swelling with pride as she thought of both the girls making out so well.

“Who is that young man talking to Helen?” Mattie asked, between the acts, and when told that it was “Mr. Ray, Wilford’s partner,” she drew her breath eagerly, and turned again to watch him, envying the young girl who did not seem as much gratified with the attentions as Mattie fancied she should do were she in Helen’s place.

How could she, with Juno Cameron just opposite, watching her jealously, while Madam Cameron fanned herself in dignity, refusing to look upon what she so greatly disapproved.

But Mark did not care who was watching him, and continued his attentions until Helen wished herself away, and though a good deal surprised, was not sorry when Wilford abruptly declared the opera a bore, and suggested going home.

They would order an ice, he said, and have a much pleasanter time in their own private parlor.

“Please don’t go; I rather like the play to-night,” Katy said; but on Wilford’s face there was that look which never consulted Katy’s wishes, and so the two ladies tied on their cloaks, and just as the curtain rose in the last act, left their box, Juno wondering at the movement, and hoping Mark would now come around to her, while Aunt Betsy looked wistfully after them, but did not suspect she was the cause of their exit, and of Wilford’s evident perturbation.

Running his eye over the house below, it had fallen upon the trio, Aunt Betsy, Mattie and Tom, the first of whom was at that moment partly standing, while she adjusted her heavy shawl, which the heat of the building had compelled her to unfasten.