incapable of ever looking better than second-hand under any circumstances, she called in the doctor, as people are apt to do when they have cobbled at themselves in vain. The dress doctor in Penninghame and the neighbourhood, the rule of fashion, the grand authority for everything in the way of _chiffons_, was a certain Miss Price, a lively little old woman, who had one of the best houses in the village, where she let lodgings on occasion, but always made dresses. She had been in business for a great many years, and was an authority both up and down the water. It was not agreeable to Miss Price to be called in at the last moment, as it were, to heal the ailments of Mary’s frock; but partly because it was the clergyman’s house, and partly because of the gossip which was always involved, she obeyed the summons, as she had done on many previous occasions. And she did her best, as Mrs. Pennithorne had done her worst, upon the little habiliment. “Ladies know nothing about such things,” the little dressmaker said, pinning and unpinning with energetic ease and rapidity. And the Vicar’s wife, who looked on helpless but admiring, accepted the condemnation because of the flattery involved; for Mrs. Pen was elevated over Miss Price by so brief an interval that this accusation was a kind of acknowledgment of her gentility, and did her good, though it was not meant to be complimentary. She liked to feel that hers was that ladylike uselessness which is only appropriate to high position. She simpered a little, and avowed that indeed she had never been brought up to know about such things; and while Miss Price put the spoiled work to rights the Vicar’s wife did her best to entertain the beneficent fairy who was bringing the chaos into order. She did not blurt out suddenly the news with which she was overbrimming, but brought it forth cunningly in the course of conversation in the most agreeable way. “Is there any news, Miss Price?” she said; “but I tell the Vicar that nothing ever happens here. The people don’t even die.” “I beg your pardon, ma’am. There’s two within the last three months; but to be sure they were long past threescore and ten.” “That is what I say. It’s so healthy at Penninghame. Look at the old Squire now, how hale and hearty he is--and after all he has come through.” “Yes, he has come through a deal,” said Miss Price, putting her pins in her mouth, “and that’s too true.” “Poor old man; and still more and more to put up with. Have you seen the children, Miss Price? Oh dear! didn’t you know? Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned it; but people cannot hide up children as they hide secrets. I have been living here for ten years, and I scarcely know the rights of the story about John Musgrave yet.” “Children!” said Miss Price, with a start which shook the pins out of her fingers. “To be sure--that came in a coach from Pennington with a play-acting sort of a woman? But what has that to do with Mr. John?”