“It fits you like a glove.”

“Really? tell the truth now; it is a sin to tell a story—­about a new gown.  What a nuisance one can’t see behind one!”

“I could fetch another glass, but you may trust my word, aunt.  This point behind is very becoming; it gives distinction to the waist.”

“Yes, Baldwin cuts these bodies better than Olivier; but the worst of her is, when it comes to the trimming you have to think for yourself.  The woman has no mind; she is a pair of hands, and there is an end of her.”

“I must confess it is a little plain, for one thing,” said Lucy.

“Why, you little goose, you don’t think I am going to wear it like this.  No.  I thought of having down a wreath and bouquet from Foster’s of violets and heart’s-ease—­the bosom and sleeves covered with blond, you know, and caught up here and there with a small bunch of the flowers.  Then, in the center heart’s-ease of the bosom, I meant to have had two of my largest diamonds set—­hush!”

The door-handle worked viciously; then came rap! rap! rap! rap!

“Tic—­tic—­tic; this is always the way.  Who is there?  Go away; you can’t come here.”

“But I want to speak to you.  What the deuce are you doing?” said through the keyhole the wretch that owned the room in a mere legal sense.

“We are trying a dress.  Come again in an hour.”

“Confound your dresses!  Who is we?”

“Lucy has got a new dress.”

“Aunt!” whispered Lucy, in a tone of piteous expostulation.

“Oh, if it is Lucy.  Well, good-by, ladies.  I am obliged to go to London at a moment’s notice for a couple of days.  You will have done by when I come back, perhaps,” and off went Bazalgette whistling, but not best pleased.  He had told his wife more than once that the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms of a house are the public rooms, and the bedrooms the private ones.

Lucy colored with mortification.  It was death to her to annoy anyone; so her aunt had thrust her into a cruel position.

“Poor Mr. Bazalgette!” sighed she.

“Fiddle de dee.  Let him go, and come back in a better temper—­set transparent; so then, backed by the violet, you know, they will imitate dewdrops to the life.”

“Charming!  Why not let Olivier do it for you, as poor Baldwin cannot?”

“Because Olivier works for the Claytons, and we should have that Emily Clayton out as my double; and as we visit the same houses—­”

“And as she is extremely pretty—­aunt, what a generalissima you are!”

“Pretty!  Snub-nosed little toad.  No, she is not pretty.  But she is eighteen; so I can’t afford to dress her.  No.  I see I shall have to moderate my views for this gown, and buy another dress for the flowers and diamonds.  There, take it off, and let us think it calmly over.  I never act in a hurry but I am sorry for it afterward—­I mean in things of real importance.”  The gown was taken off in silence, broken only by occasional sighs from the sufferer, in whose heart a dozen projects battled fiercely for the mastery, and worried and sore perplexed her, and rent her inmost soul fiercely divers ways.