“I think you a dear, anyway.  And I’ve got you a rise of a pound a week.”

“What?”

Mavis repeated her information.

“That’ll buy me some summer muslins I’ve long had my eye on, and one or two bits of jewellery.  Then, perhaps, he’ll look at me,” declared Miss Toombs.

The next moment she caught sight of her reflection in Perrott’s (the grocer’s) window, at which she cried: 

“Just look at me!  What on earth could ever make that attractive?”

“Your kind nature,” replied Mavis.  “You’re much too fond of under-valuing your appearance.”

“It’s all damned unfair!” cried Miss Toombs passionately.  “What use are your looks to you?  What fun do you get out of life?  Why—­oh why haven’t I your face and figure?”

“What would you do with it?” asked Mavis.

“Get him, get him somehow.  If he wouldn’t marry me I’d manage to ‘live.’  And he’s not a cad like Charlie Perigal,” cried Miss Toombs, as she hurried off to work.

When Mavis got back, she learned that the morning post had brought an invitation for the Devitts and herself for a dinner that Major Perigal was giving in two weeks’ time.  Major Perigal, also, wrote privately to Mavis, urging her to give him the honour of her company; he assured her that his son would not be present.

Little else but the approaching dinner was discussed by the Devitts for the rest of the day.  As if to palliate their interest in the matter, they explained to Mavis how the proffered hospitality was alien to the ways of the giver of the feast.  At heart they were greatly pleased with the invitation; it promised a meeting with county folk on equal terms, together with a termination to the aloofness with which Major Perigal had treated the Devitts since his son’s marriage to Victoria.  They accepted with alacrity.  Mavis, alone, hesitated.

Her husband urged her to go, although his physical disability would prevent him from accompanying her.

“I want my dearest to go,” he said.  “It will give me so much pleasure to know how wonderful you looked, and how everyone admired you.”

Mavis decided to accept the invitation, largely because it was her husband’s wish; a little, because she had the curiosity to meet those who would have been acquaintances and friends had her father been alive.  Her lot had been thrown so much among those who worked for daily bread, that she was not a little eager to mix, if it were only for a few hours, with her own social kind.

Mavis, again at Harold’s wish, reluctantly ordered an expensive frock for the dinner.  It was of grey taffetas embroidered upon bodice and skirt with black velvet butterflies.  The night of the dinner, when Mavis was ready to go, she showed herself to her husband before setting out.  He looked at her long and intently before saying: 

“I shall always remember you like this.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, a little afraid.