t
we might buy, if you had it very cheap, is a bit of something light and
airy that would make up very elegantly for the evening. Do you care to
have another evening-dress, Matty? I know you have a good few in your
wardrobe."

"I don't know," said Matty, "until I see what Mrs. Middlemass has. I
don't want anything common. I can get common things at Perry's; and
perhaps I had better send for my best dress to London, ma."

This remark of giggling Miss Matty's was really astute for she knew that
Mrs. Middlemass held Perry, the draper, in the most sovereign contempt.

"Right you are, my dear," said the pedler, a smile of gratified vanity
spreading over her face, "you _can_ get your common things, and
very common things they'll be, at Perry's. But maybe old Auntie
Middlemass can give you something as genteel as the London shops. You
look here, my pretty. Now, then."

Here Mrs. Middlemass went on her knees, and with slow and exasperating
deliberation, unfastened a parcel carefully done up in white muslin.
From the depths of this parcel she extracted a very thin and crackling
silk of a shade between brick and terra-cotta, which was further shot
here and there with little threads of pale blue and yellow. This texture
she held up in many lights, not praising it by any words, for she
guessed well the effect it would have on her company. She knew the Bells
of old: they were proof against anything that wasn't silk, but at the
glitter and sheen of real silk they gave way. They instantly, one and
all, fell down and worshipped it.

"_It is_ pretty," said Matty at last, with a little sigh, and she
turned away as one who must not any longer contemplate so dazzling a
temptation.

Mrs. Bell's heart quite ached for her eldest-born at this critical
juncture. It was so natural for her to wish for silk attire when the
hero was absolutely at the gates. And such a hero! So tall, so handsome,
such an Adonis--so aristocratic! But, alas! silk could not be had for
nothing. It would be an insult to offer Bell's old coat and the two
pairs of trousers gone at the knees for this exquisite substance.

"Sixteen yards," solemnly pronounced Mrs. Middlemass, when the silence
had been sufficiently long. "Sixteen yards for three pound ten. There!
it's a present I'm making to you, Miss Matty."

"I like it very much," said Matty.

"Like it! I should think you do. It was the fellow of it I sold this
morning to Lady Georgiana Higginbotham, of Castle Hi