administered, and her heart
ached dreadfully. She even offered to rush to the rescue, but Mrs. Betts
intercepted her with a stern "Better let me do up your hair, miss,"
while Mrs. Stokes, moved by sympathetic tenderness, whispered, "Stop
your ears; it is necessary, _quite_ necessary, now and then, I assure
you." Oh, did not Bessie know? had she not little brothers? When there
was silence, Miss Jocund returned, and without allusion to the nursery
tragedy resumed her task of displaying the fruits of her toils.

Bessie, with a yearning sigh, composed herself, laid hands on her blue
bonnet while nobody was observing, and moved away to an open window in
the show-room that commanded the street. Deliberately she tied the
strings in the fashion that pleased her, and seated herself to look out
where a few men and boys were collecting on the edge of the pavement to
await the appearance of the Conservative candidate at the bow-window
over the portico of the "George." Presently, Mrs. Stokes joined her,
shaking her head, and saying with demure rebuke, "You naughty girl! And
this is all you care for pretty things?" Miss Burleigh, with more real
seriousness, hoped that the pretty things would be right. Miss Jocund
came forward with a natural professional anxiety to hear their opinions,
and when she saw the bonnet-strings tied clasped her hands in acute
regret, but said nothing. Mrs. Betts, a picture of injured virtue, held
herself aloof beyond the sea of finery, gazing across it at her
insensible young mistress with eyes of mournful indignation. Bessie felt
herself the object of general misunderstanding and reproach, and was
stirred up to extenuate her untoward behavior in a strain of mischievous
sarcasm.

"Don't look so distressed, all of you," she pleaded. "How can I interest
myself to-day in anything but Mr. Cecil Burleigh's address to the
electors of Norminster and my own new bonnet?"

"_That_ is very becoming, for a consolation," said the milliner with an
affronted air.

"I think it is," rejoined Bessie coolly. "And if you will not bedizen me
with artificial flowers, and will exonerate me from wearing dresses that
crackle, I shall be happy. Did you not promise to give me simplicity and
no imitations, Miss Jocund?"

"I cannot deny it, Miss Fairfax. Natural leaves and flowers are my
taste, and graceful soft outlines of drapery; but when it is the mode to
wear tall wreaths of painted calico, and to be bustled off in twenty
yar