ere were the three Miss Tomlinsons, who imitated Miss
Landor, and also wore ermine and feathers; but their beauty was
considered of a coarse order, and their square forms were quite unsuited
to the round tippet which fell with such remarkable grace on Miss
Landor's sloping shoulders. Looking at this plumed procession of ladies,
you would have formed rather a high idea of Milby wealth; yet there was
only one close carriage in the place, and that was old Mr. Landor's, the
banker, who, I think, never drove more than one horse. These
sumptuously-attired ladies flashed past the vulgar eye in one-horse
chaises, by no means of a superior build.

The young gentlemen, too, were not without their little Sunday displays
of costume, of a limited masculine kind. Mr. Eustace Landor, being nearly
of age, had recently acquired a diamond ring, together with the habit of
rubbing his hand through his hair. He was tall and dark, and thus had an
advantage which Mr. Alfred Phipps, who, like his sister, was blond and
stumpy, found it difficult to overtake, even by the severest attention to
shirt-studs, and the particular shade of brown that was best relieved by
gilt buttons.

The respect for the Sabbath, manifested in this attention to costume, was
unhappily counterbalanced by considerable levity of behaviour during the
prayers and sermon; for the young ladies and gentlemen of Milby were of a
very satirical turn, Miss Landor especially being considered remarkably
clever, and a terrible quiz; and the large congregation necessarily
containing many persons inferior in dress and demeanour to the
distinguished aristocratic minority, divine service offered irresistible
temptations to joking, through the medium of telegraphic communications
from the galleries to the aisles and back again. I remember blushing very
much, and thinking Miss Landor was laughing at me, because I was
appearing in coat-tails for the first time, when I saw her look down
slyly towards where I sat, and then turn with a titter to handsome Mr.
Bob Lowme, who had such beautiful whiskers meeting under his chin. But
perhaps she was not thinking of me, after all; for our pew was near the
pulpit, and there was almost always something funny about old Mr. Crewe.
His brown wig was hardly ever put on quite right, and he had a way of
raising his voice for three or four words, and lowering it again to a
mumble, so that we could scarcely make out a word he said; though, as my
mother observ