id you ever see anything so pretty, Sarah? I must make you
put it on some day, just to see how it looks on another person. You
are a bit stouter than I am though, but perhaps you could pull in----"

And so Eleanor rattles on, just as if Sarah were one of the
farm-servants at home, and she the same unaffected light-hearted Miss
Grebby.

"Do you come from the country, Sarah?" she asks at last.

"Yes, ma'am. My father's a grocer, and mother keeps house for the
doctor's children in our next village."

"Then they don't live together?"

"No, ma'am, it's father's temper. We none of us can't live at home, he
is that hasty! It ain't safe, ma'am, it ain't really!"

"How dreadful," sighs Eleanor. "Doesn't it frighten you?"

"Lor! yes, ma'am. I have seen him grow purple round the eyes, and
crimson in the cheeks, and throve a whole sack of flour through the
window."

Eleanor receives the information with an expressive "Oh!" as she shakes
down her hair, and tells Sarah to brush it.

"How many servants have I got?" gazing at her face in the mirror
contentedly.

"Three, ma'am. There's me, and Judith, and cook."

"Do you like Richmond?"

"Well enough, ma'am, thank you, but Judith would have rather been in
London, and cook has always set her face against the suburbs."

"Then why did they come?"

"Well, you see, ma'am, the gentleman engaged them, and he seemed that
put about they hadn't the heart to refuse."

"Good gracious! whatever is that noise?"

"The dinner gong. Judith is very strong in the arms, and she do make
it sound, ma'am!"

"Light a few more candles; I want to have a good look at myself."

Eleanor walks up and down before the glass, with spasmodic gasps of
satisfaction, till Philip comes to the door to see if she is ready.

Eleanor is brimming over with conversation during the evening meal; she
has something to say about everything, and her ideas seem to expand
over each fresh course. At the soup she wants a pony cart, but over
the fish decides on a brougham and victoria. The _entree_ introduces a
pair of prancing chestnuts, and Philip is quite afraid that the arrival
of the meat will suggest powdered footmen in silk stockings.

"You see, dear," he explains at dessert, when Sarah and Judith have
left the room, "I have a very comfortable income to live in a fairly
luxurious style without undue extravagance. We can easily keep one
horse and man, which I have waited to choose with you."

"I