, until at
eleven o'clock, behold a small girl, to see Miss C Rendell--"Oh, if--
you--please--Miss Green--says--as--she's--two--yards--short--of--the--
material--and--could--you--make--it--convenient--to--get--it--to-day?"
My brain reeled! As soon as I had sufficiently recovered, I rushed
round to see her myself. "You _told_ me you only needed twelve yards,
and I got thirteen!" "Yes, madam, but you see, madam, these guagings
run into a deal of material. You wouldn't like them not to be full and
'andsome. Just another two yards!" There was nothing else for it, so I
promised to go up to town next morning (I couldn't possibly go that
day), and impressed upon the wretch to finish the bodice _first_,--as,
if necessary, we could do with less trimming on the skirt. My dear, the
worst is still to come! The shop was _sold out_ of the shade of voile,
and could not get it again, and when I went back to Miss Green, she had
finished the _skirt_, and had nothing left for sleeves! "Yes, I
remember you _did_ say do the bodice first, but I thought I'd be getting
on with the guaging. Guaging runs into a deal of time!" ... I just lay
back, and said to myself, "Can it be real--or is it only a terrible
nightmare?" We sat turning over hundreds of dirty old fashion plates,
to find out how to make sleeves out of nothing, and they are sights, and
I look an owl in them. There's only one comfort--if my brain has stood
such a strain, it will stand anything!

Lilias and Mr Ross are really very satisfactory, and considering that
she is thirty (thirty! Isn't it appalling!), he is not a bit too old.
It's nice to see her look happy and satisfied, and she has been as sweet
as sugar ever since, and as pleased as possible with furnishing her
little house, which will be quite poky and shabby compared with yours,
or Maud's, or even Elsie's sanatorium. Poor old Lil! I'm glad she's
going to have a good time, at last. I'm afraid she has felt very "out
of it" the last few years.

Old Mr Vanburgh is longing for your next visit, and has his study
simply plastered over with portraits of the boy. I go to sit with him
on wet afternoons, and listen meekly to praises of yourself, which I
know to be absolutely undeserved.

By the way--is Betty in love? Never a word could I get out of her, but
her indifference to the admiration she got down here--and she got a good
deal--was quite phenomenal, unless there is something behind! Methinks
at times I t