"Now, if I had you to dress," said Gertrude complacently, "I should just put you in a decent, neat corset, with a white satin gown, puffed with crimson velvet, a velvet hood lined with white satin, a girdle of gold and pearls, crimson stockings, white satin slippers, a lace rebato, and a pearl necklace. Oh, how charming you would look! You would not know yourself. Then I should put a gold bodkin in your hair, and a head-drop of pearls set round a diamond, and bracelets instead of these lawn cuffs, and a fan; and wash your face in distilled waters, and odoriferous oils for your hands." "But I should not like my hands oily!" said Lettice in amazement. Gertrude laughed. "Oh yes, you would, when you were accustomed to it. And then just the least touch on your forehead and cheeks, and--O Lettice, my dear, you would have half London at your feet!" "The `least touch' of what?" inquired Lettice. "Oh, just to show the blue veins, you know." "`Show the blue veins!' What can you show them with?" "Oh, just a touch of blue," said Gertrude, who began to fear she had gone further than Lettice would follow, and did not want to be too explicit. "You never, surely, mean--_paint_?" asked Lettice in tones of horror. "My dear little Puritan, be not so shocked! I do, really, mean paint; but not all over your face--nothing of the sort: only a touch here and there." "I'll take care it does not touch me," said Lettice decidedly. "I don't want to get accustomed to such abominable things. And as to having half London at my feet, there isn't room for it, and I am sure I should not like it if there were." "O Lettice, Lettice!" cried Gertrude amidst her laughter. "I never saw such a maid. Why, you are old before you are young." "I have heard say," answered Lettice, laughing herself, "that such as so be are young when they are old." "Oh, don't talk of being old--'tis horrid to think on. But, my dear, you should really have a little fine breeding, and not be bred up a musty, humdrum Puritan. I do hate those she-precise hypocrites, that go about in close stomachers and ruffles of Geneva print, and cannot so much as cudgel their maids without a Scripture to back them. Nobody likes them, you know. Don't grow into one of them. You'll never be married if you do." Lettice was silent, but she sat with slightly raised eyebrows, and a puzzled expression about her lips. "Well, why don't you speak?" said Gertrude briskly. "Because I don't know what to say. I can't tell what you expect me to say: and you give such queer reasons for not doing things." "Do I so?" said Gertrude, looking amused. "Why, what queer reasons have I given?" "That nobody will like me, and I shall never be married!" "Well! aren't they very good reasons?"