Regina immediately decided in her own mind that the hussy was of the plump little partridge order. "When I take hold of a lady's arm," continued Alfred, with the facetious air of a heavy father, "I like an arm that I can feel; I object to taking hold of a bone. No, no, my dear, you are not at all too fat, but I don't think you ought to wear gowns, except purely for reasons of comfort, that tend to increase your apparent size." "But you don't think it matters much?" "I'm sure it does not matter very much." "Alfred, do you think that I am greatly altered?" She asked the question wistfully, as if the issue of life and death hung upon his reply. "As a matter of fact," said Alfred Whittaker, promptly, "I think you are the least altered of any woman I ever knew in my life. I see other women going to pieces in the most extraordinary manner. Now, Mrs. Chamberlain came into the office this morning. My goodness, what a wreck! Yellow as a guinea, her face lined all over--she made me think of a mummy." "Yet she is younger than I am," said Regina. "Oh, years--they have nothing to do with the case. You have been a happy woman, a prosperous woman, a healthy woman; there has been nothing in your life to seam your face with lines and generally stamp you with all the worry that is too plainly visible on poor Mrs. Chamberlain's features. Well, here we are, and here is Julia skipping across the road." As the words left his lips a slim young figure in white emerged from the rustic gate that gave entrance and egress to the house of Marksby. They stood until Julia came running across the road. "Have you two dear things been out for an airing?" she exclaimed as she reached the foot-path. "No, only to the post-box," said Regina. "Mother dear," said Julia, "you look exactly as if you were walking about in your nightgown--a very voluminous and sublimated nightgown, but a nightgown all the same." For a moment Regina was too dashed to speak. The thought came fluttering through her mind, and seemed to fall to the floor of her heart with a great crash, that surely it was hopeless for her ever to try to win back Alfred from the hussy by personal means. Evidently she was hopelessly out of it as regards all questions of dress and the toilette. "Of course," she hastened to reply, for she did not wish Julia to think that she was annoyed by her criticism, "it really is a bedroom garment. I put it on because I was so hot to-day, and in this little country sort of place I thought going to the post in it would not matter, and--we--we did not meet anyone, did we, Alfred?" "It would not have mattered if you had," said Julia; "what you wear is a matter for your own consideration. But it does look like a nightgown." "And your mother," said Alfred, "looks better in a sort of glorified nightgown than most women do in their best frocks. And now don't you think we had better go off to bed? You will have the least as ever was, dear?"