Victorian sofa, her spectacles on her nose,
reading the <i>Times</i> of the preceding day, or appearing to read it. Amy
Grosville, the eldest girl, was busy in a corner, putting the finishing
touches to a piece of illumination; while Caroline, seated on the floor,
was showing the small child of a neighbor how to put a picture-puzzle
together. Lord Grosville was professedly in a farther room, talking with
the Austrian count; but every other minute he strolled restlessly into
the big drawing-room, and stood at the edge of the talk and laughter,
only to turn on his heel again and go back to the count--who meanwhile
appeared in the opening between the two rooms, his hands on his hips,
eagerly watching Kitty Bristol and her companions, while waiting, as
courtesy bade him, for the return of his host.

Ashe at once divined that the Grosville family were in revolt. Nor had
he to look far to discover the cause.

Was that astonishing young lady in truth identical with the pensive
figure of the morning? Kitty had doffed her black, and she wore a
"demi-toilette" gown of the utmost elegance, of which the expensiveness
had, no doubt, already sunk deep into Lady Grosville's soul. At
Grosville Park the new fashion of "tea-gowns" was not favorably
regarded. It was thought to be a mere device of silly and extravagant
women, and an "afternoon dress," though of greater pretensions than a
morning gown, was still a sober affair, not in any way to be confounded
with those decorative effects that nature and sound sense reserved for
the evening.

But Kitty's dress was of some white silky material; and it displayed her
slender throat and some portion of her thin white arms. The Dean's wife,
Mrs. Winston, as she secretly studied it, felt an inward satisfaction;
for here at last was one of those gowns she had once or twice gazed on
with a covetous awe in the shop-windows of the Rue de la Paix, brought
down to earth, and clothing a simple mortal. They were then real, and
they could be worn by real women; which till now the Dean's wife had
scarcely believed.

Alack! how becoming were these concoctions to minxes with fair hair and
sylphlike frames! Kitty was radiant, triumphant; and Ashe was certain
that Lady Grosville knew it, however she might barricade herself behind
the <i>Times</i>. The girl's slim fingers gesticulated in aid of her tongue;
one tiny foot swung lightly over the other; the glistening folds of the
silk wrapped her in a shimmeri