s come to the servants altogether;
as your ladyship says, they're quite altered for the worse since we
were young."

"But, mamma," said Lady Selina, "you're not going to ask people here
just immediately, are you?"

"Directly, my dear; your papa wishes it done at once. We're to have
a dinner-party this day week--that'll be Thursday; and we'll get as
many of the people as we can to stay afterwards; and we'll get the
O'Joscelyns to come on Wednesday, just to make the table look not quite
so bare, and I want you to write the notes at once. There'll be a great
many things to be got from Dublin too."

"It's very soon after poor Harry Wyndham's death, to be receiving
company," said Lady Selina, solemnly. "Really, mamma, I don't think it
will be treating Fanny well to be asking all these people so soon. The
O'Joscelyns, or the Fitzgeralds, are all very well--just our own near
neighbours; but don't you think, mamma, it's rather too soon to be
asking a house-full of strange people?"

"Well, my love, I was thinking so, and I mentioned it to your father;
but he said that poor Harry had been dead a month now--and that's true,
you know--and that people don't think so much now about those kind of
things as they used to; and that's true too, I believe."

"Indeed you may say that, my lady," interposed Griffiths. "I remember
when bombazines used to be worn three full months for an uncle or
cousin, and now they're hardly ever worn at all for the like, except
in cases where the brother or sister of him or her as is dead may be
stopping in the house, and then only for a month: and they were always
worn the full six months for a brother or sister, and sometimes the
twelve months round. Your aunt, Lady Charlotte, my lady, wore hers the
full twelve months, when your uncle, Lord Frederick, was shot by Sir
Patrick O'Donnel; and now they very seldom, never, I may say, wear them
the six months!--Indeed, I think mourning is going out altogether; and
I'm very sorry for it, for it's a very decent, proper sort of thing; at
least, such was always my humble opinion, my lady."

"Well; but what I was saying is," continued the countess, "that what
would be thought strange a few years ago, isn't thought at all so now;
and though I'm sure, Selina, I wouldn't like to do anything that looked
unkind to Fanny, I really don't see how we can help it, as your father
makes such a point of it."

"I can't say I think it's right, mamma, for I don't. But if you