She looked so lovely, that Gus almost audibly recalled his opinion. The exercise had given a colour to her cheeks and a brilliancy to her eyes. Her dress fitted her to perfection, and there was an indefinable something about her which stamped her superiority to those among whom she then was. She was warmly welcomed by all, and had scarcely gone through their greetings when Mr. Burgess joined and completed the little party. Mr. Burgess was a small consumptive-looking young man, principally remarkable for the length of his hair and the smallness of his cravat. Believing in his destiny as an "arteeste," he had originally entered as a student at the Royal Academy; but after severe objurgations from the authorities there, had subsided into colouring pictures for the photographers, by which he realised a decent income. He entered the room with a bound suggestive of hope and joy; but on seeing Fanny he sighed deeply, and abandoned himself to misery. Then they all bustled about, and the cloth was laid, and the provisions produced, and the half-cleansed servant appeared periodically, staggering under large pewter vessels containing malt liquor; and the gentlemen pressed the ladies to eat and to drink; and the ladies would not be persuaded without a great deal of pressing on the gentlemen's part; and so the meal was gone through with much giggling and laughter, but without any regular talk. That began when the hostess had fetched from a cupboard, where they were imbedded in layers of brown-paper patterns and bygone fashion-books, and watched over by an armless papier-mâchè idol, two bottles of spirits; and when the gentlemen had brewed themselves mighty jorums of grog, and helped the ladies to delicate wine-glasses of the same beverage. And thus it commenced: "Things must be dull with you now at Clarisse's, Fanny dear?" said the hostess. "Dull!" said Fanny: "I never knew anything like it. I don't mean written orders from the country, of course; but we only had one customer in our place the whole of last week." "What will you bet me, Fanny," said Bella Merton, "that I don't tell you that customer's name?" "Why, how can you possibly know it? She----" "I don't speak of a she! I mean a he," said Bella, laughing. "Hes ain't milliners' customers," said Mr. Burgess, with a titter. "Ain't they?" said John Merton, with a savage expression on his good-looking face; "but they are sometimes, worse luck!" "My customer, at all events, was a lady," said Fanny, rather disapproving of this turn of the conversation. "Yes; but she was accompanied by a gentleman," said Bella, still laughing; "and, as John says, gentlemen have no right in milliners' showrooms." "I suppose that even Mr. John Merton would not object to a father's accompanying his daughter to a milliner's showroom?" said Fanny, beginning to be piqued.