so are you,' she added, as she looked critically at
her mother in the elaborately trimmed, plum-coloured silk dress, so rich
that it seemed to prop up the delicate little woman and almost stifle her
with its heavy gold trimmings and fringes.

'It's to please your father and George, and nothing's too grand to do
that,' said Mrs Clay, as she went out of the room, making a rustle as she
passed along the richly carpeted passages and down the grand marble
staircase into the drawing-room. Mr Clay did not trouble himself to go
into the drawing-room to fetch his wife, but always walked straight to
the dining-room at the first note of the chimes.

George was waiting, as he did every evening, to give his arm to escort
his mother to the dining-room, and took her to the dinner-table, where
his wife and children found Mark Clay sitting at the top of the large
table which groaned under its massive gold ornaments and plate. He was a
big, bull-faced man; at first sight so different from his son and
daughter that the latter might almost be forgiven her extraordinary
suggestion to her mother that perhaps he was not her father at all! It
would require a closer observer than Sarah to see a certain set of the
chin which was common to him and his two children, though hers took the
form of haughtiness, and her brother's had such a pleasant, if indolent,
expression that his father had never discovered this hidden
characteristic.

'Well, lass, thee'rt grand to-night. How much did tha gown cost? A pretty
penny, I'll be bound. Well, lasses will be lasses, and the mills can give
as many on 'em as ye like. An' your mother, too, though she's a bit old
for such vanity; it's the young uns as want fine feathers. Now then, what
are ye scowling at?' cried her father, all in the broadest Yorkshire.

'It's the fashion to scowl at personal remarks, my dear father,' remarked
George, as he 'played,' in his mother's words, with his food.

'Then it's one fashion thee'll ha' to onlearn, dost hear? I'll ha' no
lass o' mine scowling at me at my own table,' replied her father, as he
brought his fist down on the table with a thump, which made his poor wife
jump as well as the crystal and glass, 'which it's a wonder he don't have
of gold too,' his well-bred butler observed, with a touch of contempt for
his master, which he allowed himself to vent to the equally well-bred
housekeeper, and to her only.

George stepped into the breach again. 'How's the market, dad?