looking young
woman.

Polly was a second edition of her sister, only not so good-looking. She
had made up her mind to marry Mr. Jones, the curate, who for his part
was deeply in love with Beatrice.

"They are frightfully late, aren't they?" exclaimed Daisy Jenkins,
giving a slight yawn, and looking longingly out at the tennis courts as
she spoke. "I suppose it's the way with fashionable folk. For my part, I
call it rude. Mrs. Meadowsweet, may I run across the garden, and pick a
piece of sweet brier to put in the front of my dress? Somehow I pine for
it."

"I'll get it for you," said Albert Bell, blushing crimson as he spoke.

He was a very awkward young man, but his heart was as warm as his
manners were uncouth.

"I'll get it for you, Daisy," he said. His dull eyes had not the power
of shining or looking eloquent. He stepped from behind the sofa where
his sisters sat, and stumbled over Mrs. Meadowsweet's footstool.

"I think, my dears, we'll just wait for our guests," said the old lady.
"We'll all just be present, please, when they come. It's my
old-fashioned ideas, my loves, just for us all to be ready to give them
a right-down, good welcome."

"Bother!" exclaimed Miss Daisy. She flounced her full skirts, cast a
withering glance at young Bell, and once more looked out of the open
window.

"Come here, Beatrice," exclaimed Polly.

Mr. Jones was talking to Beatrice, and Polly hoped they would both
approach the window together.

"Come and tell us about that Adonis you went rowing with to-day," called
the girl in her shrill, half-jealous voice.

It was just at that moment that the door was flung open by Jane, and the
Bertrams made their appearance.

Catherine and Mabel wore the simplest white washing-dresses. Their
girlish waists were encircled by sashes of pale gold. Catherine's thick
dark hair was coiled tightly round her head--Mabel's more frizzy and
paler locks fell in wavy curls round her forehead and on her shoulders.
Nobody else looked the least like the Bertrams. Their dresses were as
cheap as any other girl's dresses in the room. Daisy and Polly Jenkins
had really much handsomer and finer hair, but somehow the effect
produced by the Bertrams was altogether different.

Mrs. Meadowsweet addressed them in a deferential tone as "Miss," and it
went like an electric flash through the minds of all the other visitors
that the old lady was quite right when she thought it her duty to
receive them in state.