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wishes were more than fulfilled, for the following day she received a very kind note from Helen, asking her to be one of her bridesmaids, and this was accompanied by a very pretty dress, with Lady Eskdale's "kind love," and a note to invite Mrs. Douglas also to the wedding, and Mr. Douglas and Sarah to the breakfast that was to follow it.

Mrs. Douglas could hardly do less than make a very great grievance of what was intended as a kindness. She hated a wedding: it was just the sort of thing that the world chose to make a fuss about, but which she thought the most uninteresting ceremony on earth. She did not see why she was to dress herself out in satin and blonde just to go and hear two young people make foolish promises that they never could keep. What could be more absurd than to assemble a crowd to witness a man and woman promising to love each other for the rest of their lives, when we know what human creatures are,—men so thoroughly selfish and unprincipled, women so vain and frivolous? This wholesale way of dealing with her fellow-creatures was one of Mrs. Douglas's favourite methods of treating them. "I should like to go in my garden bonnet and coloured muslin gown, just to show how I despise their love of fashion," she said, as she sealed the note to her milliner, which was to order the well-chosen dress and bonnet on which she had determined for the occasion; for the energy with which she declaimed against dress did not at all interfere with her inclination to spend a great deal of money on it.