Cornelia was not in the morning-room; she was not in the drawing-room, though abundant signs of her recent presence were visible in the littered ornaments on the open piano. "I must beg Cornelia to put things back in their proper places!" said Miss Briskett a third time as she crossed the hall to the dining-room. This room also was empty, but even as she grasped the fact, Miss Briskett started with dismay to behold a bareheaded figure leaning over the garden gate, elbows propped on the topmost bar, and chin supported on clasped hands. This time she did not pause to determine what commands she should issue in the future, but stepped hastily down the path to take immediate and peremptory measures. "My dear! in the front garden--without a hat--leaning over the gate! What can you be thinking of? The neighbours might see you!" Cornelia turned in lazy amusement. "Well, if it's going to be a shock to them, they might as well begin early, and get it over." She ran a surprised eye over her aunt's severe attire. "My, Aunt Soph, you look too good to live! I'm 'most frightened of you in that bonnet. If you'd given a hoot from the window I'd have hustled up, and not kept you waiting. Just hang on two shakes while I get my hat. I won't stay to prink!" "I am not accustomed--" began Miss Briskett, automatically, but she spoke to thin air. Cornelia had flown up the path in a cloud of swirling skirts; cries of "Mury! Mury!" sounded from within, and the mistress of the house slowly retraced her steps and seated herself to await the next appearance of the whirlwind with what patience she could command. It was long in coming. The clock ticked a slow quarter of an hour, and was approaching twenty minutes, when footsteps sounded once more, and Cornelia appeared in the doorway. She had not changed her dress, she had not donned her jacket; her long, white gloves dangled from her hand; to judge from appearances she had spent a solid twenty minutes in putting on a tip-tilted hat which had been trimmed with bows of dainty flowered ribbon, on the principle of the more the merrier. Miss Briskett disapproved of the hat. It dipped over the forehead, giving an obviously artificial air of demureness to the features; it tilted up at the back, revealing the objectionable hair in all its wanton profusion. It looked--_odd_, and if there was one thing more than another to which Norton objected, it was a garment which differentiated itself from its fellows.