Let us speak of her--fair and forty, comely, with matronly outlines, but graceful. Pleasant of voice, cheerful in manner, active in benevolence, Mistress Alice was a great favourite; no christening or wedding could go off without her for miles around. The doctor's grandest patients treated her as an equal; for apart from her personal claims to respect and good-will, she was, it was understood, of the doctor's blood--a poor relation, gentle by birth as she was by education. Mistress Alice was a great authority amongst the Holmnook ladies, on all matters pertaining to dress and taste. Her own ordinary costume was an artistic one. A large white kerchief, made so as to sit like a jacket, close and high round the throat, concealed her fair arms and shoulders, and reached down to the waist of her dress, which, in obedience to the fashion of the time, ran close beneath her arms. In 1790 a lady's waist at Holmnook occupied just about the same place where the drapery of a London belle's Mazeppa harness offers its first concealment to its wearer's charms. But it was on her foot-gear that Mistress Alice devoted especial care. The short skirts of that day encouraged a woman to set her feet off to the best advantage. Mistress Alice wore natty high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings--bright crimson stockings with yellow clocks. Do you know what clocked stockings were, ladies? This writer is not deeply learned on such matters, but having seen a pair of Mistress Alice's stockings, he can tell you that they had on either side, extending from the heel upwards some six inches, flowers gracefully embroidered with a light yellow silk on the crimson ground. And these wreaths of broidery were by our ancestors called clocks. This writer could tell something else about Mistress Alice's apparel. She had for grand evenings of high festivity white kid gloves reaching up to the elbow, and having a slit at the tips of the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It was an ordinary fashion long syne. So, ladies could let out the tips of those digits to take a pinch of snuff! One night Michael Kemp, M.D., Oxon., was called up to come with every possible haste to visit a sick lady, urgently in want of him. The night-bell was rung violently, and the messenger cried to the doctor over and over from the pavement below to make good speed. The doctor did his best to comply; but, as ill-luck would have it, after he had struck a light the candle illumined by it fell down, and left the doctor in darkness. This was very annoying to the good man, for he could not reconcile it to his conscience to consume time in lighting another, and yet it was hard for such a decorous man to make his hasty toilet in the dark. He managed, however, better than he expected. His peruke came to hand all right; so did the tight inexpressibles; so did the snuff-coloured coat with high velvet collar; so did the buckled shoes. Bravo!