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136 aristocratic subjects under discussion. It seems a great waste of good starch and time, so much preparation, so little to gain by it. But though no strangers worth mentioning will be present to appraise all this bravery at its true worth, will it not be something for Rose Mary with her superior flounces to cut out Anna Maria with her scanty ones, and are not the merits of the rival beauties of the school on these occasions of dress parade afterwards discussed as fully and exhaustively as any Almack beauty, by any group of beaux and wits at White's? Hence these puckered brows and weighty discussions.

I hang up my black bombazine to try and get some of the creases out; then I dig out a pair of very large, very baggy old white kid boots, at least four sizes too big for me—family heirlooms that were originally worn (I think) by my grandmother, then by mother, now by me, and will be handed down in turn to future generations. They are as yellow as autumn leaves; surely their complexion might be improved? Not unlikely! So might my own, so might the bombazine, by upsetting a pot of ink over it. It would then at least be black but I am not going to take the trouble.

I put my bat under my arm and go downstairs with a pleased smile on my face, for am I not going to clean it, and is not this duty a real labour of love with me? But half-way down I meet a servant, who says—

"If you please, miss, you may put on your hat and go over to the parsonage, Miss Tyburn says."

I put away my bat and fetch my hat, nothing loth, and set out immediately. Arrived at the house, I find no one visible, but after some search discover Mr. Vasher in the orchard, swinging in a hammock under an apple tree. Very cool and lazy and comfortable he looks, with the September sun glinting through the green leaves, and on the sides of the rosy apples that hang over