they could hope for relief. There were at least ten women
present to every man, and entirely feminine groups were to be seen
wandering round from one garden to another, for an hour on end, growing
ever chillier and more pinched, yet laboriously keeping up an air of
enjoyment.

Grizel Beverley was the latest guest to appear, having made a compromise
with the weather by donning a white dress with a bodice so diaphanous
that Martin had informed her he could see her "thoughts," the which she
had covered with a sable coat. When the sun shone, she threw open the
coat, and looked a very incarnation of spring, so white and lacy and
daintily exquisite, that coloured costumes became prosaic in contrast.
When the wind blew, she turned up her big storm collar and peered out
between the upstanding points, so snug and smooth and unwrinkled that
the pinched faces above the feather boas appeared doubly wan and
miserable. Feminine Chumley felt it a little hard to be beaten in both
events, but bore it the more complacently since it was the bride who was
the victor. There was no doubt about it,--Grizel was a success, and
already, after but a few months' residence, Chumley was at her feet.
She was sometimes "shocking," of course, but as she herself had
predicted, the sober townspeople took a fearsome pleasure in her
extravagances. They were as a dash of cayenne, which lent a flavour to
the fare of daily life. Moreover, though welcomed with open arms by the
county, Grizel was on most intimate terms with the town. Invitations to
afternoon festivities received unfailing acceptance; she made extensive
toilettes in honour of the occasion, ate appreciative teas, and groaned
aloud when she failed to win a prize of the value of half a crown.
Anything more "pleasant" could not be imagined!

In the more serious role of parish work also, Grizel had made her debut.
The Mothers' Meeting was still waiting time, but one afternoon she had
slipped a little gold thimble and a pair of scissors with
mother-of-pearl handles into a vanity-bag, and taken her way to a Dorcas
meeting at the Vicarage, agreeably expectant of adding a new experience
to life.

The Dorcas meeting was held in the dining-room of the Vicarage, on the
long table of which lay formidable piles of calico and flannel. At a
second small table the churchwarden's wife turned the handle of a
particularly unmelodious sewing machine. Over a dozen women sat round
the room still wearing th