e your
choice of adjectives, or look into Worcester for better. The ladies
might have passed for transcendental relatives of Fouque's Undine.
Stellato, with his hair and face bedaubed with a glutinous substance
into which his helmet had been resolved, did not strongly resemble one's
idea of a Progressive Gladiator. Truly, a deplorable contrast between
that late triumphant march before the house, and this present estate of
the leaders, so reduced, so pitiable!

"Oh, dear, dear, what can I do for you?" cried good Mrs. Widesworth,
forgetting all resentment in a gracious gush of sympathy.

"'Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather,'"
murmured the clergyman, in bitter quotation, "'Storm and sunshine are
alike wholesome to the purified seekers for truth.'"

"Seekers for truth!" echoed Professor Owlsdarck; "one would say that our
friends must have been seeking it in its native well."

"As a medical man," said Dr. Dastick, "I shall direct Mrs. Widesworth to
provide some dry garments for her unexpected guests. Also, I think it my
duty to mention that a glass of hot brandy-and-water would be but
common prudence."

"The first part of your advice shall be complied with," assented our
hostess,--"that is, if I can find anything to put on to them. As to the
last suggestion,--I have, to be sure, a decanter of fine old Cognac in
the closet, but it would be almost an insult to offer it."

"The pledge has its important exceptions," observed Mr. Stellato,
shivering perceptibly. "'Except when prescribed by a medical
attendant,'--I believe I quote the exact language, Mrs. Romulus,--and
Dr. Dastick has a diploma."

"Come up-stairs, then," said Mrs. Widesworth, taking the decanter from
the closet; "you will all catch your deaths of cold, if you stay another
minute."

When the three patrons of Progress again appeared among us, they really
seemed to have accomplished their transference to an unconventional and
pastoral era. The ladies were quite lost in the spacious habits provided
for them. Likewise, they were curiously swathed in shawls and scarfs of
various make and texture, and might be considered representatives of any
age, past, present, or future, to which the beholder might take a fancy.
Mr. Stellato had been got into the only article of male attire which the
establishment afforded. This was an ancient dressing-gown, very small in
the arms, and narrow in the back: it had belonged to Twynintuft himself,
wh