‘Come upstairs and let us try on the wedding bonnets,’ said Clementina. ‘And be kind and nice, Bella. Recollect it is your last night at home.’ ‘Thank God for that, at any rate,’ ejaculated Bella, piously. The house had been transformed by an artificial and almost awful tidiness. Everything had been put away. The swept and garnished rooms were scarcely habitable. ‘I never saw such discomfort,’ cried Mr. Scratchell, looking discontentedly round his office, which smelt of soft soap, and was cleaner than he had ever seen it in his life. His papers had all been stowed away, he knew not where. Valuable leases and agreements might have been thrust into obscure corners where they would be forgotten. The whole process horrified him. ‘You oughtn’t to have touched my office,’ he said, ‘business is business.’ ‘I couldn’t help it,’ pleaded Mrs. Scratchell. ‘The men from Great Yafford said we must have a room for the gentlemen to put their hats and things, so I was obliged to give them this. You have no idea how they order us about. And then they asked me where they were to put your things, and almost before I told them, and while I was so flurried I scarcely knew what I was saying, your papers and tin boxes were all swept off.’ ‘And pray where are they?’ demanded Mr. Scratchell, furiously. ‘I--don’t be angry, Scratchell. I couldn’t help it. They’re all safe--quite, quite safe--in the hay-loft.’ ‘Where the rats are eating the Harefield leases, no doubt,’ said Mr. Scratchell. ‘It’s for a short time, dear,’ said Mrs. Scratchell, soothingly. ‘We’ll put everything back in its place the day after to-morrow; and I don’t think rats like parchment.’ The wedding day dawned, and to all that busy and excited household the sky seemed to be of another colour, and the atmosphere of another quality than the sky and atmosphere of common days. The Scratchell girls rose with the lark, or rather with the disappearance of the cockroaches in the old kitchen, where those black gentlemen scampered off to their holes, like Hamlet’s ghost, at cockcrow. The younger sisters were in high spirits. The idea of an inordinately rich brother-in-law opened a new hemisphere of delight. What picnics, and carpet dances, and other dissipations Bella could provide for them when she was mistress of Little Yafford Park! To-day they were to wear handsome dresses for the first time in their lives; dresses of Bella’s providing. As bridesmaids they were important features in the show. The maid-of-all-work was no less excited. She, too, was to wear a fine dress; and she had the prospect of unlimited flirtation with the young men from the pastrycook’s. She brought the girls an early cup of tea, and helped them to plait their hair. Ordinary plaits would not do for to-day. ‘I’ll have mine plaited in ten, if you can manage it, Sally,’ said Flora. ‘And I’ll have mine in the Grecian plait,’ said Clementina.