her and Di were starting off to be away
all that day and night. They were asked to a ridiculous house party
given by a rich, suburban Pickle family at Epsom for the Derby, and Di
had been grumbling that it was exactly the sort of invitation they
_would_ get: for one night and the Derby, instead of Ascot. However, it
was the time of the month for a moon, and quite decent young men had
been enticed; so Di wasn't so very sorry for herself after all. Her
nickname at home in Ireland, "Diana the Huntress," had been already
imported, free of duty, to England, by a discarded flirtee; but I don't
think she minded, it sounded so dashing, even if it was only grasping.
She went off moderately happy; and I was left with twenty-four hours on
my hands to decide by what hook, or what crook, I could possibly annex
the dress which I felt had been born for me.

At last I thought of a way that might do. My poor little chocolate
mother made a will the day before she died, when I was a week old,
leaving everything she possessed to me. Of course her money was all
gone, because she had been married for two years to Father, and Himself
is a very expensive man. But he hadn't spent her jewels yet, nor her
wedding veil, nor a few other pieces of lace. Since then he's wheedled
most of the jewellery out of me, but the wedding veil I mean to keep
always, and a Point d'Alencon scarf and some handkerchiefs he has
probably forgotten. I had forgotten them, too, but when I was racking my
brain how to get the Selfridge dress, the remembrance tumbled down off
its dusty little shelf.

The legacies were at the bottom of my trunk, because it was simpler to
bring them away from Ballyconal, than find a stowaway place that the
American family wouldn't need for its belongings. The veil nothing would
have induced me to part with; but the scarf was so old, I felt sure it
must have come to my mother from a succession of chocolate or perhaps
soap or sardine grandmammas, and I hadn't much sentiment about it. I had
no precise idea what the lace ought to be worth, but I fancied Point
d'Alencon must be valuable, and I thought I ought to get more than
enough by selling it to buy the white dress, which cost seven guineas.

Taxying through Wardour Street with Di, I had often noticed an antique
shop appropriately crusted with the grime of centuries, all but the
polished window, where lace and china and bits of old silver were
displayed. It seemed to me that a person intelli