alk there neither!"

"How are you goin' to get there, then?" asked Lilac.

"Mr Buckle, he's goin' to drive us over in his gig," said Agnetta. "My
I shan't we cut a dash? Bella, she's goin' to wear her black silk done
up. We've washed it with beer and it rustles beautiful just like a new
one. And she's got a hat turned up on one side and trimmed with
Gobelin."

"What's that?" asked Lilac, very much interested.

"It's the new blue, silly," answered Agnetta disdainfully. Then she
added: "My new parasol's got lace all round it, ever so deep. I expect
we shall be about the most stylish girls there. Won't Charlotte Smith
stare!"

"I s'pose it's summat like a fair, isn't it?" asked Lilac.

"Lor', no!" exclaimed Agnetta; "not a bit. Not near so vulgar. There's
a balloon, and a promnarde, and fireworks in the evening."

All these things sounded mysteriously splendid to Lilac's unaccustomed
ears. She did not know what any of them meant, but they seemed all the
more attractive.

"You've got to be so sober and old-fashioned like," continued Agnetta,
"that I s'pose you wouldn't care to go even if you could, would you?
You'd rather stop at home and work."

"I'd like to go," answered Lilac; "but Molly couldn't never get through
with the work to-morrow if we was all to go. There's a whole lot to
do."

"Oh, of course you couldn't go," said Agnetta loftily. "Bella and me's
different. We're on a different footing."

Agnetta had heard her mother use this expression, and though she would
have been puzzled to explain it, it gave her an agreeable sense of
superiority to her cousin.

In spite of soberness and gravity, Lilac felt not a little envious the
next day when Mr Buckle drove up in his high gig to fetch her cousins
to the fete. She could hear the exclamations of surprise and admiration
which fell from Mrs Greenways as they appeared ready to start.

"Well," she said with uplifted hands, "you do know how to give your
things a bit of style. That I _will_ say."

Bella had spent days of toil in preparing for this occasion, and the
result was now so perfect in her eyes that it was well worth the labour.
The silk skirt crackled and rustled and glistened with every movement;
the new hat was perched on her head with all its ribbons and flowers
nodding. She was now engaged in painfully forcing on a pair of
lemon-coloured gloves, but suddenly there was the sound of a crack, and
her smile changed to a look of disma