auty unadorned, adorned the most."

Ussher would not come till the evening, and her hair was therefore in
papers--and the very papers themselves looked soiled and often used.
Her back hair had been hastily fastened up with a bit of old black
ribbon and a comb boasting only two teeth, and the short hairs
round the bottom of her well-turned head were jagged and uneven, as
though bristling with anger at the want of that attention which they
required. She had no collar on, but a tippet of different material
and colour from her frock was thrown over her shoulders. Her dress
itself was the very picture of untidiness; it looked as though it had
never seen a mangle; the sleeves drooped down, hanging despondingly
below her elbows; and the tuck of her frock was all ripped and
torn--she had trod on it, or some one else had done it for her,
and she had not been at the trouble of mending it. It was also too
tight, or else Feemy had not fastened it properly, for a dreadful
gap appeared in the back, showing some article beneath which was by
no means as white as it should be;--"but then, wasn't it only her
morning frock?" In front of it, too, was a streaked mark of grease,
the long since deposited remains of some of her culinary labours.
Her feet were stuffed into slippers--truth compels me to say they
would more properly be called shoes down at heel--her stockings were
wofully dirty, and, horror of all horrors, out at the heels! There
she sat, with her feet on the fender, her face on her hands, and
her elbows on her knees, with her thumb-worn novel lying in her lap
between them.

There she sat; how little like the girl that had eclipsed Mary
Cassidy at the ball at Mohill! Poor though Feemy was, she could make
out a dress, and a handsome dress, for such an occasion as that. Then
every hair on her fine head had been in its place; the curls of her
rich brown hair were enough to win the heart of any man; the collar
round her fair neck had been beautifully washed and ironed, for her
own hands had been at work on it half the morning; her white long
gloves had been new and well fitting, and her only pair of silk
stockings had been scrupulously neat; her dress fitted her fine
person as though made by Carson, and she had walked as though she
knew she need not be ashamed of herself. But now how great was the
contrast!

No girls know better how to dress themselves than Irish girls, or can
do it with less assistance or less expense; but they