Thus Mrs. Dobbs, rather dreamily, with her eyes fixed on the opposite houses of Friar's Row--or as much of them as could be seen above a wire window-blind--and her fingers mechanically busy with her knitting. But she saw neither the quaint gables nor the gray stone-walls. Her mind was transported into the past. She was bowling along a smooth highroad in an old-fashioned chaise. A girl friend sat in the little seat behind her, and leaned over her shoulder from time to time to whisper some saucy joke. Beside her was the girl-friend's brother, young Isaac Dobbs:--A personable young fellow, who drove the old pony humanely, and seemed in no hurry to get home to Gloucester. She could feel the moist, sweet air of a showery summer evening on her cheek, and smell the scent of a branch of sweetbriar which Isaac had gallantly cut for her from the hedge. Theodore Bransby did not guess that Mrs. Dobbs had treated him with forbearance and indulgence; still less did he imagine that the forbearance and indulgence had been due to reminiscences of her girlhood, wherein his maternal grandfather figured as "Old Rabbit." The question of May's dress for the dinner-party gave rise to no debate. Mrs. Dobbs had been brought up in the faith that the proper garb for a young girl on all festive occasions was white muslin; and in white muslin May was arrayed accordingly. The delicate fairness of her arms and neck was not marred by the trying juxtaposition of that dead white material. It served only to give value to the soft flesh tints, and to the sunny brownness of her hair. When she had driven off in the roomy old fly with Mrs. Hadlow and the canon and Constance, who called to fetch her, Mrs. Dobbs and Mr. Weatherhead agreed that she looked lovely, and must excite general admiration. But the truth was that May's appearance did not seem to dazzle anybody. Mrs. Hadlow gave her a comprehensive and approving glance when she took her cloak off in the well-lighted hall of Mr. Bransby's house, and said, "Very neat. Very nice. Couldn't be better, May." Canon Hadlow--a white-haired venerable figure, with the mildest of blue eyes, and a sensitive mouth--smiled on her, and nodded in confirmation of his wife's verdict. Constance, brilliant in amber, with damask roses at her breast and in her hair, thought her friend looked very school-girlish, and wanting in style. But she had the good-nature to pay the one compliment which she sincerely thought was merited, and to say, "Your complexion stands even that blue-white book muslin, May. I should look absolutely mahogany-coloured in it!"