Miss Gentry in ordering it did not shirk the word “depilatory.” On the contrary she pronounced the five syllables with a pomposity which was the more impressive to Jinny because even “The Universal Spelling-Book” stopped short at four syllables. Not for worlds—whether to her client or the public at large—would Jinny have betrayed her knowledge that the hair-destroyer represented a never-ending battle with Miss Gentry’s moustache. And for the sensitive dressmaker herself the polysyllable was a soothing cover. Ostrich-like she hid her head in its spacious sandiness. There was, however, the little matter of Martha’s bleached and new-trimmed bonnet, which Jinny might convey to Frog Farm, and the casual mention that it was Will who had brought it led to considerable conversation. Jinny’s equipage was drawn up outside the little garden, where tulips (red, damask, and pink) stood like tall guards before a tropical palace; and Miss Gentry, despite the chill wind, leaned on her garden-gate, carefully nursing her black cat against Nip’s possible swoops. The excellent lady, whose erudition Jinny had always absorbed with the reverence due to a reader of _The Englishwoman’s Magazine_, was always delighted to have the girl sitting at her feet—even though to the crude physical vision Jinny always appeared to be sitting above her head, and Miss Gentry to be looking up to her. Sometimes real information from the aforesaid magazine, which bore the sub-title of “The Christian Mother’s Miscellany,” was thus transmitted to Jinny; but Miss Gentry’s brain was obviously too cluttered up with archaic notions to be really beneficial to her young devotee. Thus, although Miss Gentry enlarged Jinny’s mind, it was more a matter of range than of accuracy. The conversation to-day, however, was on a more personal plane. Jinny was resolved to speak no further word to Mr. William Flynt: his interference was unforgivable. But when it transpired that he had brought the bonnet, she did not attempt to check Miss Gentry’s flow of favourable comment, still less to contradict it. For a Peculiar he was quite the gentleman, Miss Gentry opined, especially after that coarse and flippant Bundock. Not tall enough for her taste, because she thought you ought always to look up to a man; still, handsome in a rough way, despite his ginger hair. “Not ginger!” Jinny protested. “It shades to ginger,” the dressmaker replied severely, as an authority upon colours. “But it served to brighten up his face, which was none too cheerful. Born under Saturn, I should think, and the sign of the Scorpion.” “And what effect has that?” asked Jinny, alarmed. “Well, for one thing it qualifies the unruly actions and passions of Venus.” “The goddess of Beauty,” observed Jinny, airing her Spelling-Book. “Of Love,” corrected Miss Gentry.