Miss Barber, Miss Cotton, Miss Lamb, Miss Dishley, Miss Trotter, Miss Hull, Miss Parker, Miss Bury, Miss Oxley, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. &c., all, in their turn, peeped anxiously over Miss Milly’s shoulder, to make themselves sure that their names were in the happy list. Lucy Harrison, alone, stood with a composed countenance in the midst of the agitated group. “Well, cousin Lucy, what say you now? Shall I bespeak a bonnet for you, hey?--Do you know,” cried Miss Milly, turning to the admirers of her bonnet, “do you know that I offered to bespeak one yesterday for Lucy; and she was so stingy she would not let me, because it was _too dear_?” “_Too dear!_ Could ye conceive it?” repeated the young ladies, joining in a scornful titter. All eyes were now fixed upon Lucy, who blushed deeply, but answered, with gentle steadiness, that she really could not afford to lay out so much money upon a bonnet, and that she would rather not have her name put down in the list. “She’s a good prudent girl,” whispered Wright to Marvel. “And very pretty, I am sure; I never saw her look so pretty as at this instant,” replied Marvel in a low voice, “Please yourself, child,” said Miss Milly, throwing back her head with much disdain; “but I’m sure you’ll please nobody else with such a dowdy thing as that you have on. Lord! I should like to see her walk the streets of York on a Sunday that figure. Lord! how Mrs. Stokes would laugh!” Here she paused, and several of her fair audience were struck with the terrible idea of being laughed at by a person whom they had never seen, and whom they were never likely to see; and transporting themselves in imagination into the streets of York, felt all the horror of being stared at, in an unfashionable bonnet, by Mrs. Stokes. “Gracious me! Miss Milly, do pray be sure to have mine sent from York afore next Sunday,” cried one of the country belles: “and, gracious me! don’t forget mine, Miss Mill,” was reiterated by every voice but Lucy’s, as the crowd followed Miss Harrison out of the churchyard. Great was the contempt felt for her by the company; but she was proof against their ridicule, and calmly ended, as she began, with saying, “I cannot afford it.” “She is a very prudent girl,” repeated Wright, in a low voice, to Marvel. “But I hope this is not stinginess,” whispered Marvel. “I would not marry such a stingy animal as Goodenough has taken to wife for all the world. Do you know she has half starved the servant boy that lived with them? There he is, yonder, getting over the stile: did you ever see such a miserable-looking creature?--He can tell you fifty stories of dame Goodenough’s stinginess. I would not marry a stingy woman for the whole world. I hope Lucy Harrison is not stingy.” “Pray, Mrs. Wright,” said Marvel’s friend, turning to his wife, who had been standing beside him, and who had not yet said one word, “what may your opinion be?”