When Mr. Carrington asked me a week ago if a garden party at Strangemore would give me any pleasure--so little are we accustomed to gayeties of any kind--my spirits rose to fever height, and I told him without hesitation nothing on earth he could do for me would occasion me greater delight than his ordering and regulating _a fete_ in which I might bear a part. Afterwards, when I fully understood the consequences of my rash words, how heartily did I repent them! First came the battle with papa about the necessary garments to be worn at it--gowns we should have and gowns we had not--and a skirmish naturally followed. Mamma and Dora undertook to face the foe alone in this instance (it being unanimously decided in conclave that my presence on the scene would only hinder any chances of success), and after a severe encounter Dora triumphed--as somehow Dora always does triumph--though I am bound to admit many tears were shed and many reproaches uttered before victory was declared in our favor. Then came the getting to Strangemore in the disgraceful fossil that clings to us like a nightmare, and won't fall to pieces from decay. Half an hour before we start, papa caracoles away on his sprightly roan, got up regardless of expense, leaving Brewster to drive us, with Billy seated beside him on the box-seat; while we three women sit inside and try to think our dresses are not crushed, while undergoing the hour and a half of anguish, before described, on our way. As we are all fully alive to the fact that to face the hall-door at Strangemore and the assembled county in our shandrydan is more than we can endure, we enter the grounds by a back way; and having given Brewster strict orders to reach the yard without being seen, and if seen to answer no inconvenient questions, we alight, and shaking out our trains, proceed towards the gardens. My dress is composed of simple batiste, but is a wonderful mingling of palest pink and blue, impossible to describe; my hat is also pink and blue, my gloves delicately tinted. Marmaduke's earrings and locket and bracelets and rings are scattered all over my person; and altogether, I flatter myself, I am looking as well as it is possible for Phyllis Vernon to look. Dora is in a ravishing costume, of which blue silk forms the principal part, and has put on a half-pouting, just-awakened expression, that makes her appear a lovely grown up baby. Mamma is looking, as she always looks in my eyes, perfectly beautiful. She and Dora march in front, while Billy and I bring up the rear. To my excited imagination it seems as if all the world were met together on the croquet-lawn. I say, "Oh, Billy!" in an exhilarated tone, and give his arm a squeeze; but, as the dear fellow thinks it necessary to be morose on the occasion, he takes it badly, and tells me, angrily, to moderate my transports, or people will say I have never been at any entertainment before--which if people did say it would be unusually near the truth.