“If you knew anything about haberdashery or outfitting or singlets, or going straight through on the left, you wouldn’t have any petticoats,” I explained. “You would have a skirt--unless you were dressed in tricot or gold-beaters’ skin, which, I believe, is newer--and the thing you wore on the top would be a ‘robe’ or a ‘blouse suit,’ or a ‘costume’ or a ‘trotteuse’ or a ‘cache-corset’ or--oh dear! I am out of breath. I can’t disentangle terms any more.” “I am afraid your shopping has gone to your head,” said James. “Did you buy anything useful? Did you remember the library carpet and the lawn-mower?” “I am sorry,” I said; “they were straight through on the left and that brought me out at Covent Garden, so I bought some peaches for you, and when I began again it was too late--the shop was shutting.” “Very well,” he said, “I will go to-morrow myself. It will do just as well and, I dare say, cost less in extras.” He came home at seven and would answer no questions, but shut himself up with Harrods’ list. When he had written for what he wanted, I met him in the hall and opened the door with a polite bow. “Pillar-box, straight through on the left,” I said. _CHAPTER XVI_: THE COUNTRY HOUSE I have said that we should come back to the question of county families, for I find it is a subject that I cannot keep off. I remember twenty years ago there was a well-known lady who used to ramp through the streets of the second or third city of the Empire dressed in a tailor-made suit like a riding-habit. On her head was a hard felt hat shaped like a paper boat and ornamented with some remains of a grouse. Round her neck was the dirtiest of white silk handkerchiefs loosely knotted. In fact, her whole appearance was arranged to convey the impression that her relations kept ferrets. In those days the effect was more marked, as the county was then a little island of the blest where no towns except capitals were mentioned. But it is all different now. No suburban residence is complete without its pheasant, and you absolutely must walk so that we all understand how difficult you find it to manage these pavements after the freedom of Papa’s moors. It is wonderful what the imagination will do! But these are not the real provincial county families; they are a subdivision who live just outside the town and who make a point of the “glass” rather than the pheasants.