‘My love, how absent-minded you are!’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘Of course you can’t judge of the general appearance till the flounces are on, and it all comes together. But you can tell me what you think of the colour and the style of trimming.’ ‘Oh, you mean the dress,’ answered Beatrix, with cruel indifference. ‘I think that silver-gray is a pretty colour.’ ‘It’s the new shade,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘You are sure it’s the new shade, are you not, Miss Killick?’ she asked, turning to the dressmaker. ‘Yes, ma’am, it’s quite the new shade,’ answered Miss Killick solemnly. Beatrix seated herself by the fire, and idly watched the blaze, while Mrs. Dulcimer went on working. There was not much sustained conversation. Everybody except Beatrix was thinking of the dress. Miss Killick and Rebecca had their mouths full of pins, and dropped a few whenever they spoke, like the girl in the fairy tale. After half an hour or so Beatrix rose to go, but Mrs. Dulcimer entreated her to stop till the dress was tried on. ‘It will be ready in a quarter of an hour, won’t it, Miss Killick?’ she inquired. They were all sitting close together now, Rebecca sewing the body to the skirt, the dressmaker sewing on the final flounce. ‘I don’t suppose we shall be much longer, ma’am,’ said Miss Killick. ‘And at four we are going to have a refreshing cup of tea,’ said the Vicar’s wife, ‘so you really must stop, Beatrix.’ Beatrix could not refuse so small a favour, so she went on staring at the fire; while the three workers hastened the finish of their task, with their heads close together, like the three fatal sisters intent upon the web of some particular destiny which Jove had ordered them to hurry to its conclusion. ‘There,’ said the three simultaneously, ‘it’s done.’ Five minutes later Mrs. Dulcimer was standing before her cheval glass, buttoned into her new gown, and trying to make it look as if it belonged to her, every fold having the stiffness, strangeness, and awkwardness which are characteristic of a new garment. Beatrix had to assist at the discussion as to whether the sleeve should not be shortened a quarter of an inch, or the shoulder seam taken up a little, or the waist tightened, or the skirt lengthened. When she found herself free to depart the church clock was striking the quarter after four. The sky, which had brightened a little in the afternoon, was yellow in the west, where the sun would soon go down behind yonder black ridge of moor. The wind had dropped, and there was a mildness in the air like the sweet breath of early spring. There was a circuitous way to the Water House, through meadows that lay behind the churchyard. It was a solitary walk, that Beatrix liked at all times, and which particularly suited her humour just now. She went in at the wicket gate in the angle of the churchyard, and followed the narrow path between the crowded headstones,--commonplace memorials of harmless uneventful lives.