There was in the first place Mr. Salter, with a white hat on, which duly set off by contrast, that true secret for producing effect, a countenance, the hue of which we flatter ourselves we need not again describe. Lady Flamborough embellished his arm; her head thrown back, and adorned by a pink crape hat and feathers, her eyes raised, and practising their most becoming roll, her complexion heightened by the heat of the weather and the long walk up through the Sherbourn. Not that her dress was oppressive, on the contrary, it was light enough in all conscience, consisting of the softest India muslin, trimmed with superfine Mechlin lace, and ornamented at the neck, and at the wrists round the top, and round the bottom, down the sleeves, and down the front, with ties, bows, and ends innumerable, of pink ribbon, while a broad long sash of the same encircled the waist, tied behind in dancing-school fashion. The dress was made nearly as low round the bust as a dinner costume, while what shelter there was to compensate for this was derived from the long pendant white gauze-ribbon strings, and deep blond-lace edge of the hat, with merely a slight pink gauze-scarf, scarcely wider or longer than the said strings. The next in the line (as it approached crossing the walk abreast), was Lady Whaleworthy, defying hot weather and sunshine in a crimson velvet pelisse. It was a thing which, as she told her own maid when putting it on, had cost too much money to be ever either out of season or out of fashion: it was only your dabs of things which every body could have that were sure to go out again before you could turn yourself round in them, so that there was no saving in the end. "I always _tells_ Sir Matthias that a right good article, cost what it will at the first, is sure to be the cheapest in the long run." Poor Lady Whaleworthy! a crimson-velvet pelisse had been the dream of her youth when she did not think she should ever possess such a treasure! and still such the hold of early impressions in a crimson-velvet pelisse was concentrated her ladyship's notions of the _ne plus ultra_ of magnificence. Next came little Sir James, fantastically fine, with a lilac figured silk waistcoat, as many gold chains as a lady, and a glaring brooch, the gift of Miss Grace Salter, and taken for the purpose of being so bestowed from her own dress, and with her own brown hands transferred to the breast of his open-work-fronted and diamond buttoned inner garment; while the little man, during the whole performance of the flattering operation, had laughed almost hysterically.