In due time a telegram arrived from uncle Julius, containing instructions for the buggy to be sent to Gool-Gool to meet him and Everard Grey.

By this time I had quite recovered from influenza and my accident, and as they would not arrive till near nightfall, for their edification I was to be dressed in full-blown dinner costume, also I was to be favoured with a look at my reflection in a mirror for the first time since my arrival.

During the afternoon I was dispatched by grannie on a message some miles away, and meeting Mr Hawden some distance from the house, he took it upon himself to accompany me.  Everywhere I went he followed after, much to my annoyance, because grannie gave me many and serious talkings-to about the crime of encouraging young men.

Frank Hawden had changed his tune, and told me now that it mattered not that I was not pretty, as pretty or not I was the greatest brick of a girl he had met.  His idea for this opinion was that I was able to talk theatres with him, and was the only girl there, and because he had arrived at that overflowing age when young men have to be partial to some female whether she be ugly or pretty, fat or lean, old or young.  That I should be the object of these puerile emotions in a fellow like Frank Hawden, filled me with loathing and disgust.

It was late in the afternoon when Hawden and I returned, and the buggy was to be seen a long way down the road, approaching at the going-for-the-doctor pace at which uncle Julius always drove.

Aunt Helen hustled me off to dress, but I was only half-rigged when they arrived, and so was unable to go out and meet them.  Uncle Julius inquired for that youngster of Lucy’s, and aunt Helen replied that she would be forthcoming when they were dressed for dinner.  The two gentlemen took a nip, to put a little heart in them uncle Julius said, and auntie Helen came to finish my toilet while they were making theirs.

“There now, you have nothing to complain of in the way of looks,” she remarked at the completion of the ceremony.  “Come and have a good look at yourself.”

I was decked in my first evening dress, as it was a great occasion.  It was only on the rarest occasion that we donned full war-paint at Caddagat.  I think that evening dress is one of the prettiest and most idiotic customs extant.  What can be more foolish than to endanger one’s health by exposing at night the chest and arms—­two of the most vital spots of the body—­which have been covered all day?  On the other hand, what can be more beautiful than a soft white bosom rising and falling amid a dainty nest of silk and lace?  Every woman looks more soft and feminine in a decollete gown.  And is there any of the animal lines known pleasanter to the eye than the contour of shapely arms?  Some there are who cry down evening dress as being immodest and indecent.  These will be found among those whose chest and arms will not admit of being displayed, or among those who, not having been reared to the custom, dislike it with many other things from want of use.