Mrs. Jericho was looking about her for an answer, when Basil observed—“I see; got no gowns. Ask a woman to a tea-party in the Garden of Eden, and she’d be sure to draw up her eyelids, and scream—‘I can’t go without a gown.’” “I think, Basil”—said Miss Monica, a little majestically,—“you had better confine yourself to terriers, and things that, perhaps, you understand. What do you know about gowns?” “Very true, my eider-duck, very true. And, mother, as I am to show at the Lodge, I must really have a supply of loyalty: for I quite sympathise with the girls; feel it quite impossible, my honoured lady, to appear at the same table twice in the same toothpick.” Mrs. Jericho, tapping her palm with the missive from Jogtrot Lodge, was descending deep into meditation. Who shall say what visions rose before her? It had always been her ambition that her girls should—in her own nervous words—“make a blow in marriage.” And she felt—felt as a mother—that, perhaps, the time was come. The girls should go armed at all points for conquest. “It shall be so,” said Mrs. Jericho, self-communing; and then she serenely smiled upon all her children. “Proud to take your word for it, my revered lady,” said Basil. “So as I’ve got to look at another dog at Chambers,—though Scrub’s a first-love I shall never get over; yes, that dog’s a bruised place here, I can tell you”—and the mourner pointed his fore-finger to his heart—“I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I suppose, girls, you’ll go to this fête, like the rest of ’em, in your war-paint?” (The young ladies could not tell what he meant.) “Therefore, for the honour of the family, I must start a new tooth-pick. So, the loyalty I must have, my dear madam—the loyalty, my honoured parent, or in two hours I’m cutting my name with a shilling pen-knife in the Tower of London. Good morning,” and Basil, with his best grace, saluted the hand of his mother, filliped a kiss to both the girls, and strode from the room. “Well, he is a handsome fellow,” said Monica. “Handsome! he’s beautiful,” cried Agatha. “Beautiful!”—exclaimed the mother, sighing—“he’s his own father, when I first met him. Yes; every look, and every tone a Pennibacker.” “Mr. Jericho’s in his room, ma’am,” said Edwin the page. “Oh!” said Mrs. Jericho. CHAPTER IV.