The Countess had mentioned her own gown, and had spoken strict truth in what she had said of it;--but not a shilling of Mr. Goffe's money went to the establishment of a wardrobe for herself. That her daughter should go down to Yoxham Rectory in a manner befitting the daughter of Earl Lovel was at this moment her chief object. Things were purchased by which the poor girl, unaccustomed to such finery, was astounded and almost stupefied. Two needlewomen were taken in at the lodgings in Wyndham Street; parcels from Swan and Edgar's,--Marshall and Snellgrove were not then, or at least had not loomed to the grandeur of an entire block of houses,--addressed to Lady Anna Lovel, were frequent at the door, somewhat to the disgust of the shopmen, who did not like to send goods to Lady Anna Lovel in Wyndham Street. But ready money was paid, and the parcels came home. Lady Anna, poor girl, was dismayed much by the parcels, but she was at her wits' end when the lady's-maid came,--a young lady, herself so sweetly attired that Lady Anna would have envied her in the old Cumberland days. "I shall not know what to say to her, mamma," said Lady Anna. "It will all come in two days, if you will only be equal to the occasion," said the Countess, who in providing her child with this expensive adjunct, had made some calculation that the more her daughter was made to feel the luxuries of aristocratic life, the less prone would she be to adapt herself to the roughnesses of Daniel Thwaite the tailor. The Countess put her daughter into the mail-coach, and gave her much parting advice. "Hold up your head when you are with them. That is all that you have to do. Among them all your blood will be the best." This theory of blood was one of which Lady Anna had never been able even to realise the meaning. "And remember this too;--that you are in truth the most wealthy. It is they that should honour you. Of course you will be courteous and gentle with them,--it is your nature; but do not for a moment allow yourself to be conscious that you are their inferior." Lady Anna,--who could think but little of her birth,--to whom it had been throughout her life a thing plaguesome rather than profitable,--could remember only what she had been in Cumberland, and her binding obligation to the tailor's son. She could remember but that and the unutterable sweetness of the young man who had once appeared before her,--to whom she knew that she must be inferior. "Hold up your head among them, and claim your own always," said the Countess.