broader in the shoulders; but we will have in a seamstress and see what can be done."

"Oh, Mother, am I really to wear them? They are too fine for me!"

"Nonsense, child! I shall be quite content if you do not blush for the quaintness of your attire. It is one thing to see gowns in a chest at home, and quite another to see them compared with fresher and newer finery in the world of fashion."

My poor mother! The very mention of the world of fashion brought a smile to her lips, and it was with a glow like youth on her pale cheeks that she bade me good night.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH I ENTER A NEW WORLD

My visit to Twickenham marked a new era in my life. Assuredly, if I could have known beforehand what serious consequences were to flow from it I should not have undertaken it so lightly, nor should I have waved my mother such a careless good-bye as the post-chaise drove away from our door in Duke Street. As it was, however, I had no forebodings; but gave myself up to the joyful thought that I was going to the country. If my delight was tempered at all, it was by the prospect of meeting so many new people, and I besought Miss Martha Blount to describe them to me and to give me rules for my behavior that I might not disgrace both her and my mother. Miss Blount laughed and said something kind about youth and beauty needing no rules of conduct outside those suggested by native good breeding, and then she began to enlighten me in regard to the people whom I was to meet.

The party, she said, was to be small in number, but not in consequence. Of all the company she