not suffer.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

JULIA CASTLETON.

The party whom Miss Castleton had offered to escort round the--grounds
consisted of several ladies and gentlemen, most of them young, with the
exception of an old military officer, General Sampson, who, however, was
as active and gallant as the youngest, and a matronly dame, Mrs
Appleton, who went with the idea that a chaperone would be required on
the occasion.

As is not unfrequently the case under similar circumstances, the party
before long separated. The general and Mrs Appleton had sat down to
rest in a summer-house, while the rest of the party went on. The
chaperone, on discovering that they had got out of sight, started up,
and was hurrying forward to overtake them, when her bonnet, adorned with
huge bows, caught in a low hanging bough, and, to her horror, before she
could stop her progress, not only was it dragged off, but so was her
cap, and the wig she wore beneath. The general doing his utmost to
maintain his gravity hastened up to her assistance. At the same moment
three of the young ladies, with two of the gentlemen who had accompanied
them, having turned back appeared in sight, and hearing her cries
hastened towards her. The general, who was short of stature, though of
no small width, had, in the meantime, been in vain attempting to unhook
the bows from the branch.

"Let me, general, let me," exclaimed poor Mrs Appleton, who was tall
and thin; and she made an effort to extricate her bonnet.

While she was thus employed, leaving her bare head exposed, her
companions reached the spot, trying in vain to stifle their laughter.

By the exertions of a tall gentleman of the party, her bonnet was at
length set free, and with the assistance of the young ladies was, with
the wig and cap, replaced on her head.

"Well, my dears, the same accident might have happened to any one of
you," she remarked, with a comical expression, which showed that she was
less put out than most people would have been by the occurrence, "though
to be sure, as you have only your natural hair beneath your bonnets,
that, I conclude, would have stuck faster to your head than mine did,
which, as you have discovered, is for convenience sake removable at
pleasure."

Captain Headland, on leaving the house, wishing to be polite to all, had
addressed himself to three or four of the young ladies in succession,
but either finding the conversation uninteresting, or that he could