"How lovely!" said Imogen again. She was at a loss for adjectives this morning. "Just fancy, mother, how the girls at Miss Cotton's will envy me. I must write to one or two of them from `The Fells' to tell them of my adventures." "Ye-es, perhaps," said her mother. "But you are not obliged to keep up those schoolgirl friendships _too_ closely, darling. You may find yourself in such a different sphere before long, and then it becomes just a little embarrassing sometimes." "Not with Dora Barry," said Imogen. "I don't care _awfully_ for any one else, but I have perfectly _promised_ Dora that she is to be my bridesmaid--" She stopped suddenly, blushing as she did so. "Ah, Imogen," said her mother, "I have caught you. I thought you were never going to marry! But seriously, dear, you should be a little careful now; even Dora, though she is a nice girl, she is not--not exactly in the same position. I should have much _preferred_ your never going to school at all, you know; only everybody said it would have been so very lonely for you;" and Mrs Wentworth sighed--a simple and unaffected sigh. "Of course it was good for me to go to school," said Imogen. "I was as happy as possible there. And, mother, I'm _not_ going to give up all my friends there, whatever you say," she maintained stoutly, with the slight want of deference in her tone which sometimes bordered rather nearly on disrespect in her way of speaking to her mother. "Above all, not Dora; she's every bit as much a lady as I am, every bit, even though her father's only a country doctor." She glanced up with a touch of half-saucy defiance in her merry eyes. "_How_ pretty she looks!" thought Mrs Wentworth; and in her gratification she forgot to feel any annoyance at Imogen's persistency. Then a good deal of talk and consultation on the absorbing and inexhaustible subject of "clothes" ensued--talk which demonstrated the absolute necessity of an immediate shopping expedition. Indeed, in shopping expeditions, and instructions endless, minute, and contradictory to the somewhat tried, but patient Colman, promoted _pro tem_, from the post of house-and-parlour-maid to that of the Wentworth ladies' personal attendant, passed the next few days, till the eventful Thursday which was to see the little party _en route_ for Grey Fells Hall. Other visitors were expected to arrive there that day--visitors more welcome and more congenial--yet on the Wentworths an unusual amount of anticipatory attention had been bestowed, attention which, had they known of it, they would certainly not have coveted. Not that it was all unfriendly; Mrs Helmont, and the Squire himself, so far as he ever interfered in the details of such matters, were anxious that the strangers, rather specially thrown on their hospitality, should be happy and at home under their roof. But the precautions they took to this end were not of the most judicious.