“A widow lady and her daughter. Their name is Clyde, and they have a good deal of money, I believe,” said Bessie Dasher.

“Bai-ey Je-ove!” exclaimed Horner. “I say, old fellah, p’waps they ah those ladies in hawf-mawning, ah?”

“Dear me! this is quite interesting,” said Miss Spight. “Do let me know what the joke is about ladies in half-mourning, Mr Lorton—something romantic, I’ve no doubt.” She was always keen to scent out what might be disagreeable to other people, was Miss Spight!

“Oh, it’s only Horner’s nonsense!” said I. “But what are these Clydes like?”

“Very nice, indeed!” said Miss Pimpernell. “The mother is extremely well-bred and ladylike, and the daughter Minnie—such a pretty name, Frank—is quite a little darling. I’m positively in love with her, and I’m sure you will like her. They are very nice people indeed, my boy, and thorough acquisitions to our little society.”

“I only hope so, Miss Pimpernell,” sighed Lady Dasher; “but appearances, you know, are so deceitful sometimes.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Miss Spight, “handsome is as handsome does! We’ll see them by and by in their true colours; new brooms, Lady Dasher, sweep clean. Ah!”

There was a world in that “ah!”

“Well,” said little Miss Pimpernell, in her staunch good-nature, “I think it is best to be charitable and take people as we find them. I have seen a good deal of the Clydes during the month they have been here and like them very much. But you will have an opportunity of judging for yourself, Frank, as Minnie Clyde promised me to come down to-day and help us with the decorations.”

“She’s a very nice-looking girl,” said the curate.

“Do you really think her pretty?” asked Bessie Dasher. One could detect a slight tone of dissatisfaction in her voice, and she spoke with a decided pout.

“Well, perhaps she’s not exactly pretty,” said Mr Mawley, diplomatically; “but nice-looking, at all events—that was the word I used, Miss Bessie.”

“But she dresses so plainly!” said Lizzie Dangler.

“I call her quite a dowdthy!” lisped Baby Blake.

“And I say she’s very nice!” said Seraphine Dasher, who had none of the petty dislike of her sex to praise 

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