and seeing myself reflected in a big mirror at the other end. I was so thinly clad that I was transparent, and could see through myself. Well, in the afternoon in question I was dressed quite an hour and a half too soon. I had a narrow little white gown, which clung successfully tight and close to my figure, and which was of so moderate a length as to leave visible my ankles and my neatly-shod and cross-sandled feet. I had long mittens on my arms, black, and embroidered on the backs in coloured silks; and above my hair, which at the back was scratched up to the top of my crown, towered a tremendous tortoise-shell comb; while on each side of my face modestly drooped a bunch of curls, nearly meeting over my nose. “My figure was full--ah! my dear, I have always had a tendency to fat, and you see what it has come to--and my pink cheeks were more deeply brightly rosy than usual. I had looked out at every upper window, so as to have the furthest possible view of the road. “I had walked in my thin shoes half way down the drive, so as to command a turn, which, from the house, impeded my vision, when, at last, after many tantalising false alarms, and just five minutes later than the time mentioned in the letter, the high-swung, yellow-bodied, post-chaise hove in sight, dragged--briskly jingling--along by a pair of galloping horses. Then, suddenly, shyness overcame me--much as I loved my father, it was more as my personification of all knightly and noble qualities than from much personal acquaintance with him--and I fled. “I remained in my room until I thought I had given them ample time to get through the first greetings and settle down into quiet talk. Then, having for one last time run my fingers through each ringlet of my two curl bunches, I stole diffidently downstairs. “There was a noise of loud and gay voices issuing from the parlour, but, as I entered, they all stopped talking and turned to look at me. “‘And so this is Phœbe!’ cries my father’s jovial voice, as he comes towards me, and heartily kisses me. ‘Good Lord, how time flies! It does not seem more than three months since I saw the child, and yet then she was a bit of a brat in trousers, and long bare legs!’ “At this allusion to my late mode of attire, I laugh, but I also feel myself growing scarlet. “‘Here, Bobby!’ continues my father, taking me by the hand, and leading me towards a sofa on which a young man is sitting beside my mother; ‘this is my little lass that you have so often heard of. Not such a very little one, after all, is she? Do not be shy, my boy; you will not see such a pretty girl every day of your life--give her a kiss.’ “My eyes are on the ground, but I am aware that the young man rises, advances (not unwillingly, as it seems to me), and bestows a kiss, somewhere or other on my face. I am not quite clear _where_, as I think the curls impede him a good deal.