and Lucetta were sitting at breakfast when a parcel
containing two dresses arrived for the latter from London. She called
Elizabeth from her breakfast, and entering her friend's bedroom
Elizabeth saw the gowns spread out on the bed, one of a deep cherry
colour, the other lighter--a glove lying at the end of each sleeve, a
bonnet at the top of each neck, and parasols across the gloves,
Lucetta standing beside the suggested human figure in an attitude of
contemplation.

"I wouldn't think so hard about it," said Elizabeth, marking the
intensity with which Lucetta was alternating the question whether this
or that would suit best.

"But settling upon new clothes is so trying," said Lucetta. "You are
that person" (pointing to one of the arrangements), "or you are THAT
totally different person" (pointing to the other), "for the whole of the
coming spring and one of the two, you don't know which, may turn out to
be very objectionable."

It was finally decided by Miss Templeman that she would be the
cherry-coloured person at all hazards. The dress was pronounced to be a
fit, and Lucetta walked with it into the front room, Elizabeth following
her.

The morning was exceptionally bright for the time of year. The sun fell
so flat on the houses and pavement opposite Lucetta's residence that
they poured their brightness into her rooms. Suddenly, after a rumbling
of wheels, there were added to this steady light a fantastic series of
circling irradiations upon the ceiling, and the companions turned to the
window. Immediately opposite a vehicle of strange description had come
to a standstill, as if it had been placed there for exhibition.

It was the new-fashioned agricultural implement called a horse-drill,
till then unknown, in its modern shape, in this part of the country,
where the venerable seed-lip was still used for sowing as in the days
of the Heptarchy. Its arrival created about as much sensation in the
corn-market as a flying machine would create at Charing Cross. The
farmers crowded round it, women drew near it, children crept under and
into it. The machine was painted in bright hues of green, yellow, and
red, and it resembled as a whole a compound of hornet, grasshopper,
and shrimp, magnified enormously. Or it might have been likened to an
upright musical instrument with the front gone. That was how it struck
Lucetta. "Why, it is a sort of agricultural piano," she said.

"It has something to do with corn," said Elizab