ost singular attribute of the lady's appearance has still to be
mentioned. She always wore a slouch hat, which from motives of propriety
she called her bonnet, which gave her a singular appearance, as though
it had been put on to thatch her entirely from the weather. It was made
generally of black straw, and was round, equal at all points of the
circle, and was fastened with broad brown ribbons. It was supposed in
the neighborhood to be completely weather-tight.

The unimaginative nature of Fulham did not allow the Fulham mind to
gather in the fact that, at the same time, she might possess two or
three such hats. But they were undoubtedly precisely similar, and she
would wear them in London with exactly the same indifference as in the
comparatively rural neighborhood of her own residence. She would, in
truth, go up and down in the omnibus, and would do so alone, without the
slightest regard to the opinion of any of her neighbors. The Carroll
girls would laugh at her behind her back, but no Carroll girl had been
seen ever to smile before her face, instigated to do so by their
cousin's vagaries.

But I have not yet mentioned that attribute of Miss Grey's which is,
perhaps, the most essential in her character. It is necessary, at any
rate, that they should know it who wish to understand her nature. When
it had once been brought home to her that duty required her to do this
thing or the other, or to say this word or another, the thing would be
done or the word said, let the result be what it might. Even to the
displeasure of her father the word was said or the thing was done. Such
a one was Dolly Grey.

CHAPTER XVII.

MR. GREY DINES AT HOME.

Mr. Grey returned home in a cab on the day of Mr. Tyrrwhit's visit, not
in the happiest humor. Though he had got the best of Mr. Tyrrwhit in the
conversation, still, the meeting, which had been protracted, had annoyed
him. Mr. Tyrrwhit had made accusations against himself personally which
he knew to be false, but which, having been covered up, and not
expressed exactly, he had been unable to refute. A man shall tell you
you are a thief and a scoundrel in such a manner as to make it
impossible for you to take him by the throat. "You, of course, are not a
thief and a scoundrel," he shall say to you, but shall say it in such a
tone of voice as to make you understand that he conceives you to be
both. We all know the parliamentary mode of giving an opponent the lie
so as to ma