dark, and chattered without a pause
about herself, her governesses, her sister, and her sister's husband.

"'A wedding in the house,' she observed, 'is very good fun,
particularly if you take a principal part in it. I was chief
bride's-maid, you know, my dear girls. But I'll tell you the whole
affair from the first. You know I had never been bride's-maid before,
and I couldn't make up my mind about how I should like the dresses,'
etc., etc. And we had got no further in the story than Miss Lucy's own
costume, when we were called to dress and go downstairs.

"'What are you going to put on?' she asked, balancing herself at our
door and peering in.

"'White muslin!' we said with some pride, for they were new frocks,
and splendid in our eyes.

"'I have had so many muslins, I am tired of them,' she said; 'I shall
wear a pink silk to-night. The trimming came from London. Perhaps I
may wear a muslin to-morrow; I have an Indian one. But you shall see
my dresses to-morrow, my dear girls.'

"With which she left us, and we put on our new frocks (which were to
be _the_ evening dresses of our visit) in depressed spirits. This was
owing to the thought of the pink silk, and of the possibility of a
surfeit of white muslin.

"During the evening we learnt another of Miss Lucy's peculiarities.
Affectionate as she had been when we were alone together, she was no
sooner among the grown-up young ladies downstairs than she kept with
them as much as she was permitted, and seemed to forget us altogether.
Perhaps a fit of particularly short sight attacked her; for she seemed
to look over us, away from us, on each side of us, anywhere but at us,
and to be quite unconscious of our existence. The red-haired young
lady had made her fetch us a large scrap-book, and we sat with this
before our eyes, and the soft monotonous chit-chat of our hostess in
our ears, as she talked and worked with some elder ladies on the sofa.
It seemed a long gossip, with no particular end or beginning, in which
tatting, trimmings, military distinction, linens, servants, honourable
conduct, sentiment, settlements, expectations, and Bath waters, were
finely blended. From the constant mention of Cecilia and the dear
major, it was evident that the late wedding was the subject of
discourse; indeed, for that matter, it remained the prime topic of
conversation during our stay.

"Cecilia and the dear major were at Bath, and their letters were read
aloud at the breakfast-t