’I do not think Lesbia’s frocks and your habits will agree, but you can have some pretty morning gowns if you like;’ and the order had been given for a confection in muslin and lace for Lady Mary.

Mary came down to breakfast one bright June morning, in the new frock, feeling very proud of herself, and looking very pretty.

‘Fine feathers make fine birds,’ said Fraeulein Mueller.  ’I should hardly have known you.’

‘I wish you would always dress like that,’ said Lesbia; ’you really look like a young lady;’ and Mary danced about on the lawn, feeling sylph-like, and quite in love with her own elegance, when a sudden uplifting of canine voices in the distance had sent her flying to see what was the matter with the terrier pack.

In the kennel there was riot and confusion.  Ahab was demolishing Angelina, Absalom had Agamemnon in a deadly grip.  Dog-whip in hand, Mary rushed to the rescue, and laid about her, like the knights of old, utterly forgetful of her frock.  She soon succeeded in restoring order, but the Madras muslin, the Breton lace had perished in the conflict.  She left the kennel panting, and in rags and tatters, some of the muslin and lace hanging about her in strips a yard long, but the greater part remaining in the possession of the terriers, who had mauled and munched her finery to their hearts’ content, while she was reading the Riot Act.

She went back to the house, bowed down by shame and confusion, and marched straight to the dowager’s morning-room.

‘Look what the terriers have done to me, grandmother,’ she said, with a sob.  ’It is all my own fault, of course.  I ought not to have gone near them in that stupid muslin.  Please forgive me for being so foolish.  I am not fit to have pretty frocks.’

’I think, my dear, you can now have no doubt that the tailor gowns are fittest for you,’ answered Lady Maulevrier, with crushing placidity.  ’We have tried the experiment of dressing you like Lesbia, and you see it does not answer.  Tell Kibble to throw your new gown in the rag-bag, and please let me hear no more about it.’

After this dismal failure Mary could not feel herself ill-used in having to wear tailor gowns all the year round.  She was allowed cotton frocks for very warm weather, and she had pretty gowns for evening wear; but her usual attire was cloth or linsey woolsey, made by the local tailor.  Sometimes Maulevrier ordered her a gown or a coat from his own man in Conduit Street, and then she felt herself smart and fashionable.  And even the local tailor contrived to make her gowns prettily, having a great appreciation of her straight willowy figure, and deeming it a privilege to work for her, so that hitherto Mary had felt very well content with her cloth and linsey.  But now that John Hammond so obviously admired Lesbia’s delicate raiment, poor Mary began to think her woollen gowns odious.

After breakfast Mary and Maulevrier went straight off to the kennels.  His lordship had numerous instructions to give on this last day, and his lieutenant had to receive and register his orders.  Lesbia went to the garden with her book and with Fraeulein—­the inevitable Fraeulein as Hammond thought her—­in close attendance.