"We start for Lake George to-morrow morning; come, get ready." "Why, father, what has started you all of a sudden?" "That's my business." "Well, we cannot get ready, no way in the world." "Pshaw! I could get a ship ready before ten o'clock." "But we cannot get new hats." "Plenty of time. Start right out." "To-night? Buy a hat in the evening, who ever heard of such a thing? What would Mrs. Grundy say?" "Ask her, she is going with us; or rather, we are going with them. Grundy is in shoal water, and wants to get out of sight a few days; and I want he should, for I am on his paper heavy." "Oh, it is absolutely impossible for us to go to our milliner to-night." "Go in the morning, then. Time enough." "What? before ten o'clock. How vulgar you are, father." "Very well: if you cannot get up new flying gibs, go to sea with the old ones." "Well, I suppose we might send for Madam Pantanosi to call in the morning; but, dear me, there are our dresses all in the work-room, not one of them done. You don't expect Athalia is going to finish them to-night, do you?" "Have you no others?" "What if we have? the Grundys know that we have new ones making, and of course, will expect to see them. You don't expect your daughters, I hope, to wear old dresses, on a tour to the Lakes?" "Why not? That is the place to wear them." "You may talk, father, but it is out of the question." "Well, settle it your own way. I go to-morrow, and if you are going with me, you had better be getting ready; besides, let me tell you, young Wendall is going up too. We are going to have some great sport, fishing." That decided Elsie. If George Wendall and the Grundys were going, she must go, for he and Minnie Grundy needed watching. She would go, if she wore the old hat, and a dress that had been worn twice before. "Where is that seamstress? she must work all night, and get my dress done any way." "Elsie, daughter, she cannot do that, her eyes are very weak. You had better take her along with us, the poor girl; give her a little country air, and let her finish your dresses there." "Yes, yes, that's it, wife, let her go along. She appears to be a right, tight little craft. A sail will do her good. What a pity she did not hail from the right port." "You have very curious notions, father." "That is my business." "Well, for my part," says Matilda, "I think she can go just as well as not; our maid and she can have a room together, and nobody need to know that we have brought a seamstress along with us; if they did, they would think it very vulgar. Of course, she won't come to the table with us, at the hotel." "No, indeed; I guess she will not; though, I suppose, we shall have a private table; shall we not, father?" "That is my business." But as it was settled that she was to go, it was, finally, thought necessary to tell her so, and she was sent for, and told of the arrangement.