“’One is obliged here to attend the circles of the Queen, which are held once a fortnight; and what renders it very expensive is, that you cannot go twice in the same dress, and a court-dress you cannot make use of elsewhere.  I directed my mantua-maker to let my dress be elegant, but plain as I could possibly appear with decency.  Accordingly, it is white lutestring, covered and full-trimmed with white crape, festooned with lilac ribbon and mock point-lace, over a hoop of enormous size.  There is only a narrow train, about three yards in length to the gown-waist, which is put into a ribbon on the left side,—­the Queen only having her train borne.  Ruffled cuffs for married ladies,—­treble lace ruffles, a very dress cap with long lace lappets, two white plumes, and a blonde lace handkerchief.  This is my rigging.’”

Miss Prissy here stopped to adjust her spectacles.  Her audience expressed a breathless interest.

“You see,” she said, “I used to know her when she was Nabby Smith.  She was Parson Smith’s daughter, at Weymouth, and as handsome a girl as ever I wanted to see,—­just as graceful as a sweet-brier bush.  I don’t believe any of those English ladies looked one bit better than she did.  She was always a master-hand at writing.  Everything she writes about, she puts it right before you.  You feel as if you’d been there.  Now, here she goes on to tell about her daughter’s dress.  She says:—­

“’My head is dressed for St. James’s, and in my opinion looks very tasty.  Whilst my daughter is undergoing the same operation, I set myself down composedly to write you a few lines.  Well, methinks I hear Betsey and Lucy say, “What is cousin’s dress?” White, my dear girls, like your aunt’s, only differently trimmed and ornamented,—­her train being wholly of white crape, and trimmed with white ribbon; the petticoat, which is the most showy part of the dress, covered and drawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers; the sleeves, white crape drawn over the silk, with a row of lace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half-way down the arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle,—­a little stuck between,—­a kind of hat-cap with three large feathers and a bunch of flowers,—­a wreath of flowers on the hair.’”

Miss Prissy concluded this relishing description with a little smack of the lips, such as people sometimes give when reading things that are particularly to their taste.

“Now, I was a-thinking,” she added, “that it would be an excellent way to trim Mary’s sleeves,—­three rows of lace, with a sprig to each row.”

All this while, our Mary, with her white short-gown and blue stuff-petticoat, her shining pale brown hair and serious large blue eyes, sat innocently looking first at her mother, then at Miss Prissy, and then at the finery.