on my back the king's
proclamation, inside out, and written on it in large letters--'By order
of my sister I do this.' Then what will be said of you, if they only
kill me? My feelings might be very sad, but I should not envy yours,
Faith."

"Kiss me, at any rate, before you perish, in token of forgiveness;" and
Dolly (who dearly loved her sister at the keenest height of rebellion)
ran up and kissed Faith, with a smile for her, and a tear for her own
self-sacrifice. "I shall put on my shell-pink," she said, "and they
won't have the heart to fire shells at it."

The dress of the ladies of the present passing period had been largely
affected by the recent peace, which allowed the "French babies"--as
the milliners' dolls were called--to come in as quickly as they were
conceived. In war time scores of these "doxy-dummies"--as the rough tars
called them--were tossed overboard from captured vessels or set up as
a mark for tobacco-juice, while sweet eyes in London wept for want of
them. And even Mr. Cheeseman had failed to bring any type genuinely
French from the wholesale house in St. Mary's Axe, which was famed for
canonical issue. But blessed are the patient, if their patience lasts
long enough. The ladies of England were now in full enjoyment of all the
new French discoveries, which proved to be the right name, inasmuch as
they banished all reputable forms of covering. At least, so Mrs. Twemlow
said; and the Rector went further than she did, obtaining for his
sympathy a recommendation to attend to his own business. But when he
showed the Admiral his wife's last book of patterns--from a drawer which
he had no right to go to--great laughter was held between the twain,
with some glancing over shoulders, and much dread of bad example.
"Whatever you do, don't let my girls see it; I'll be bound you won't
let your Eliza," said the Admiral, after a pinch of snuff to restore the
true balance of his principles; "Faith would pitch it straight into the
fire; but I am not quite so sure that my Dolly would. She loves a bit of
finery, and she looks well in it."

"Tonnish females," as the magazine of fashion called the higher class
of popinjays, would have stared with contempt at both Faith and Dolly
Darling in their simple walking-dress that day. Dowdies would have been
the name for them, or frumps, or frights, or country gawks, because
their attire was not statuesque or classic, as it should have been,
which means that they were not h