“I think it’s high time Mary had done something fit to be seen,” said Miss Nicky; “she is now sixteen past.”

“Most girls of Mary’s time of life that ever I had anything to do with,” replied Jacky, with a certain wave of the head, peculiar to sensible women, “had something to show before her age.  Bella had worked the globe long before she was sixteen; and Baby did her filigree tea-caddy the first quarter she was at Miss Macgowk’s,” glancing with triumph from the one which hung over the mantelpiece, to the other which stood on the tea-table, shrouded in a green bag.

“And, to be sure,” rejoined Grizzy, “although Betsy’s screen did cost a great deal of money—­that can’t be denied; and her father certainly grudged it very much at the time—­there’s no doubt of that; yet certainly it does her the greatest credit, and it is a great satisfaction to us all to have these things to show.  I am sure nobody would ever think that ass was made of crape, and how naturally it seems to be eating the beautiful chenille thistle!  I declare, I think the ass is as like an ass as anything can be!”

“And as to Mary’s drawing,” continued the narrator of her deficiencies, “there is not one of them fit for framing:  mere scratches with a chalk pencil—­what any child might do.”

“And to think,” said Nicky, with indignation, “how little Mrs. Douglas seemed to think of the handsome coloured views the girls did at Miss Macgowk’s.”

“All our girls have the greatest genius for drawing,” observed Grizzy; “there can be no doubt of that; but it’s a thousand pities, I’m sure, that none of them seem to like it.  To be sure they say—­what I daresay is very true—­that they can’t get such good paper as they got at Miss Macgowk’s; but they have showed that they can do, for their drawings are quite astonishing.  Somebody lately took them to be Mr. Touchup’s own doing; and I’m sure there couldn’t be a greater compliment than that!  I represented all that to Mrs. Douglas, and urged her very strongly to give Mary the benefit of at least a quarter of Miss Macgowk’s, were it only for the sake of her carriage; or, at least, to make her wear our collar.”

This was the tenderest of all themes, and bursts of sorrowful exclamations ensued.  The collar had long been a galling yoke upon their minds; it iron had entered into their very souls; for it was a collar presented to the family of Glenfern by the wisest, virtuousest, best of women and of grandmothers, the the good Lady Girnachgowl; and had been worn in regular rotation by every female of the family till now that Mrs. Douglas positively refused to subject Mary’s pliant form to its thraldom.  Even the Laird, albeit no connoisseur in any shapes save those of his kine, was of opinion that since the thing was in the house it was a pity it should be lost.  Not Venus’s girdle even was supposed to confer greater charms than the Girnachgowl collar.

“It’s really most distressing!” said Miss Grizzy to her friend Lady Maclaughlan.