“Adieu. Your affectionate Grandmother, “C. FAIRBANK.” Mrs. Bryce listened attentively, and pronounced the writer’s mode of expression to be “vastly old-fashioned.” “But when you write, you may thank her all the same, Polly. Mrs. Fairbank means kindly, and if I thought old Nap would come in truth--but ’tis all bluster and empty boasting. For my part, I put no sort of belief in no invasion of our shores. But you may tell her that I am most sincerely grateful, and that, should occasion arise, I will not fail to avail myself of her generous hospitality.” With which Mrs. Bryce settled herself comfortably in an apology for an easy-chair--real easy-chairs had not yet been evolved--and read her own letter. “From my cousin in Norfolk. And if you’ll believe it, Polly, they’re all in a bustle and fright there too, lest Nap should land first on the eastern coast. He’ll have enough on hand, if he’s to go everywhere that’s expected of him! And if he goes there, they’ll get them away into the fen country, where ’tis thought the French Army won’t be able to follow.” Presently the letter was put aside, and Mrs. Bryce betook herself to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, not without another passing allusion, contemptuously worded, on the state of alarm into which folks in general seem to have fallen. “Listen now to this, Polly. ’Tis vastly entertaining. ‘Human nature is too fond of novelty.... Never did it seem to be running so much from its proper course as in the present age, when we observe night turned into morning, and the mornings change into night.... Where are the good days of old Queen Bess? The sun-rise breakfast, the noon-tide repast, and the twilight pillow of repose?’” Mrs. Bryce stopped, to indulge in a laugh. “But for my part I have no especial wish to go back to the manners of Queen Bess. Nor to change luncheon into dinner once more.” Then she went on reading:-- “‘But among the most prominent foibles of the age is dress. Every breeze (until the present war) wafted over some new Parisian extravagance and impropriety, and we had sufficient of our own without any importation of such French fashions, French manners, and French ruinations.’ Then, my dear, the same writer goes on to relate how, after an absence of fifteen years, he returned to his natal town, and on Sunday, when in church, he could not resist observing the dress of a certain young woman in his front. She wore ‘the Spanish cloak, the dome hat, the single thin muslin petticoat, and the still thinner loose robe that hung from her shoulders,’ all this making him suppose her to be some personage of no small importance. But, to his amaze, he found the young female to be--the butcher’s daughter! ’Tis a paper dated ‘August,’ and signed ‘Old Square Toes.’” A pause, during which Polly’s thoughts flitted away to Fontainebleau, and then Mrs. Bryce started anew:--