eaving me there.

"He explained to me that it was impossible--he had all sorts of things to
do, a magistrate's meeting to attend, and I don't know all what. Besides
which he liked me to be with my grandmother, and he told me I was a silly
little goose when I said I was afraid of her.

"My father entered the house without knocking--there was no need to lock
doors in the quiet streets of the little old town, where everybody that
passed up and down was known by everybody else, and their _business_
often known better by the everybody else than by themselves. We went up
to the drawing-room, there was nobody there--my father went out of the
room and called up the staircase, 'Mother, where are you?'

"Then I heard my grandmother's voice in return.

"'My dear Hugh--is it you? I am so sorry. I cannot possibly come down. It
is the third Tuesday of the month. My wardrobe day.'

"'And the little woman is here too. What shall I do with her?' said my
father. He seemed to understand, though I did not, what 'wardrobe day'
meant.

"'Bring her up here,' my grandmother called back. 'I shall soon have
arranged all, and then I can take her downstairs again.'

"I was standing on the landing by my father by this time, and, far from
loth to discover what my grandmother was about, I followed him upstairs.
You have no idea, children, what a curious sight met me! My grandmother,
who was a very little woman, was perched upon a high stool, hanging up on
a great clothes-horse ever so many dresses, which she had evidently taken
out of a wardrobe, close by, whose doors were wide open. There were
several clothes-horses in the room, all more or less loaded with
garments,--and oh, what queer, quaint garments some of them were! The
clothes my grandmother herself had on--even those I was wearing--would
seem curious enough to you if you could see them now,--but when I tell
you that of those she was hanging out, many had belonged to _her_
grandmother, and mother, and aunts, and great-aunts, you can fancy what a
wonderful array there was. Her own wedding-dress was among them, and all
the coloured silks and satins she had possessed before her widowhood. And
more wonderful even than the dresses were a few, not very many, for
indeed no room or wardrobe would have held _very_ many, bonnets, or
'hats,' as I think they were then always called. Huge towering
constructions, with feathers sticking straight up on the top, like the
pictures of Cinderella's sister