the toe to a pain in
the temper, and was very frequently descriptive of the latter ailment.
Betty's condition, therefore, as subject to this malady, excited little
regret.

"And how goes it with Mrs Gatty? Is she now my Lady Polesworth?"

"My Lady Fiddlestrings!" responded Molly. "Not she--never will. Old
Polesworth wanted a pretty face, and after Gatty's small-pox, why, you
couldn't--"

"Small-pox!" cried Madam and Rhoda in concert.

"What, didn't you know?" answered Molly. "To be sure--took it the
minute she got home. But that wasn't all, neither. Old Polesworth told
Mum"--which meant Lady Delawarr--"that he might have stood small-pox,
but he couldn't saintship; so Saint Gatty lost her chance, and much
she'll ever see of such another. Dad and Mum were as mad as hornets.
Dad said he'd have horsewhipped her if she'd been out of bed. Couldn't,
_in_ bed, you see--wouldn't have looked well."

"But, my dear, she could not help taking the small-pox?"

"Maybe not, but she might have helped taking the saint-pox," said Molly.
"I believe she caught it from you," nodding at Phoebe. "But what vexed
Mum most was that the grey goose actually made believe to be pleased
when she lost her chance of the tinsel. Trust me, but Mum blew her up--
a little! All leather and prunella, you know, of course. Pleased to be
an old maid!--just think, what nonsense. She will be an old maid now,
sure as eggs are eggs, unless she marries some conventicle preacher.
That would be the best end of her, I should think."

Phoebe sat wondering why Molly paid so poor a compliment to her own
denomination as to suppose that the natural gravitation of piety was
towards Dissent. But Molly's volatile nature passed to a different
subject the next moment.

"I say, old Roadside, bring a white gown. The Queen's coming to the
Bath, and a lot of folks are trying to make her come on to Berkeley; and
if she do, a whole parcel of young gentlewomen are to be there to
courtesy to her, and give her a posy, and all that sort of flummery.
And Mum says she'll send us down, if they do it."

"Who's to give the posy?" eagerly asked Rhoda.

"Don't know. Not you. You won't have a chance, old Fid-fad. No more
shan't I. It'll be some thing of quality. I'll tread on her tail,
though,--see if I don't."

"Whose?" whispered Rhoda; for Molly's last remark had been confidential.
"You don't mean the Queen?"

"Of course I do,--who better? Her grandmother was