Lily was too wild to respond with immediate approval, but her heart jumped. She had seen the young ladies and the young gentlemen out riding, and what a sight it was! They filled the streets, the horses' hoofs ringing like soldiers, and the ladies' long habits sweeping down, and the horses arching their shining necks. And when there was a ball, if you knew one of the servants you might be let in to see the ladies in their beautiful dresses, and to hear the music; and sometimes Miss Prentice would be sent for with one of her girls to hold the pins. Lily's heart danced at the thought of these delights. Miss Prentice was the dressmaker in Waterside, and lived in the street which was nearest to the gate of the castle, and where everything could be seen that was going on. Here Lily went accordingly, after there had been various consultations between her mother and the dressmaker. "My Lily is a good lass; there's no harm in her," Elizabeth said. "You may think I'm partial; but who should know her like me; and who so anxious to see if there's ill in her? She's a good lass, but she's fanciful: she takes things into her head." "Most folks does," said Miss Prentice; "especially them that is good for something. So long as she is not taken up with lads and nonsense----" "Never such a thought has been in her head," said Elizabeth, with some heat. "Ah! that's more than I would say of a saint. I'm not fond of the pretty ones, for my part; they're fine to try things on, for all looks well on them; but they seldom settle to the business as I could like. Lads are the destruction of the business; but you're an honest woman, Elizabeth Murray, and you've had a fight to bring up your bairns. I'll take her and I'll try her, to show my respect for her mother; and that's as fair as I can say." Elizabeth made her acknowledgments like a duchess, with conscious dignity. "I cannot think a bairn of mine will ever shame me," she said; "if you take her canny, you'll never get a saucy word from my Lily. It's the unmannerly that make bad manners. If I saw her with a good business at her finger-ends I think I could die happy." "Die! not you! You're not of the dying kind," said Miss Prentice, briskly; "and as for the business, if she will stick to the business, it will never forsake her: if she be not too bonnie for the business," the dressmaker added with a sigh. She was an enthusiast for her profession, as all artists should be, and sighed at the thought of those temptations of intrusive life which tempt the neophyte astray.