Then he bought some white ties and gloves and an opera hat, and had his hair cut in Bond Street.

At seven he got his clothes at the tailor’s, and at eight he was in the stalls of the opera.  His mother had sent him there, to note the dress and public deportment of gentlemen and ladies, and use his own judgment.  He found his attention terribly distracted by the music and the raptures it caused him; but still he made some observations; and, consequently, next day he bought some fashionable shirts and sleeve studs and ribbon ties; ordered a morning suit of the same tailor, to be sent to him at Hillsborough; and after canvassing for customers all day, telegraphed his mother, and reached Hillsborough at eleven P.M.

At first sight of him Mrs. Little exclaimed: 

“Oh!  What have you done with your beautiful hair?”

He laughed, and said this was the fashion.

“But it is like a private soldier.”

“Exactly.  Part of the Volunteer movement, perhaps.”

“Are you sure it is the fashion, dear?”

“Quite sure.  All the swells in the opera were bullet-headed just like this.”

“Oh, if it is the fashion!” said Mrs. Little; and her mind succumbed under that potent word.

She asked him about the dresses of the ladies in the opera.

His description was very lame.  He said he didn’t know he was expected to make notes of them.

“Well, but you might be sure I should like to know.  Were there no ladies dressed as you would like to see your mother dressed?”

“Good heavens, no!  I couldn’t fancy you in a lot of colors; and your beautiful head deformed into the shape of a gourd, with a beast of a chignon stuck out behind, made of dead hair.”

“No matter.  Mr. Henry; I wish I had been with you at the opera.  I should have seen something or other that would have become me.”  She gave a little sigh.

He was not to come home to dinner that day, but stay at the works, till she sent for him.

At six o’clock, Jael Dence came for him in a fly, and told him he was to go home with her.

“All right,” said he; “but how did you come there?”

“She bade me come and see her again—­that day I brought the bust.  So I went to see her, and I found her so busy, and doing more than she was fit, poor thing, so I made bold to give her a hand.  That was yesterday; and I shall come every day—­if ’tis only for an hour—­till the curtains are all up.”

“The curtains! what curtains?”

“Ask no questions, and you will hear no lies.”

Henry remonstrated; Jael recommended patience; and at last they reached a little villa half way up Heath Hill.  “You are at home now,” said Jael, dryly.  The new villa looked very gay that evening, for gas and fires were burning in every room.

The dining-room and drawing room were both on the ground-floor; had each one enormous window with plate glass, and were rooms of very fair size, divided by large folding-doors.  These were now open, and Henry found his mother seated in the dining-room, with two workwomen, making curtains, and in the drawing-room were two more, sewing a carpet.