The time was drawing near. The corn was cut and carried on many a broad sweep of hot chalky soil, and "summer's branding sun" had burnt up the thin grass on the wide bare down, where never shadow of tree or bush made a cool spot in the expanse of light and heat and dryness. The mysterious immemorial stones yonder on Salisbury Plain stood up against a background of cloudless blue; and the windows of the cathedral in the valley glittered and flashed in the sunshine. Only in the sober old close, and the venerable gardens of a bygone generation, within hedges that dead hands had planted, trees whose growth dead eyes had watched, was there coolness or shelter, or the gentle slumberous feeling of summer afternoon in its restful perfection. Here, in an antique drawing-room, Mrs. Mornington and her niece were taking tea, after a morning with tailor and dressmaker. "There never was such a girl for not-caringness as this girl of mine," said Mrs. Mornington, with a vexed air. "If it had not been for me, I don't think she would have had a new frock in her trousseau, and as she is a very prim personage about _lingerie_, and has a large stock of Parisian prettiness in that line, there would really have been nothing to buy." "Rather a relief, I should think," laughed Mrs. Canon, who was giving them tea. "A most delightful state of things," asserted Mrs. Sub-Dean, proud mother of half a dozen daughters, in which opinion agreed a county lady, also rich in daughters. "Ah, you are all against me!" said Mrs. Mornington; "but there is a great pleasure in buying things, especially when one is spending somebody else's money." "Poor papa!" sighed Suzette. "My aunt forgets that he is not Crœsus." "Look at that girl's wretched pale face!" cried Mrs. Mornington. "Would any one think that she was going to be married to a most estimable young man, and the best match in the neighbourhood--except one?" At those two last words, Suzette's cheeks flamed crimson, and the feminine conclave looking at her felt she was being cruelly used by this strong-minded aunt of hers. "I don't think the nicest girls are ever very keen about their trousseau," said the county lady, with a furtive glance at a buxom freckled daughter, who had lately become engaged, and who had already begun to discuss house-linen and frocks, with a largeness of ideas that alarmed her parents. "Yes; but there is a difference between caring too much and not caring at all. Suzette would be married in that white gingham she is wearing to-day, if I would let her." "Pray don't teaze people about my frocks, auntie. If you can't find something more interesting to talk about, we had better go away," said Suzette, with a pettishness which was quite unlike her; but it must be owned that to be made the object of a public attack in feminine convocation was somewhat exasperating.