"this isn't paid for, nor this, nor this; and you with your
slow head have no idea how it adds to the interest they possess. If I
am not allowed to have a bit of fashion in my dress, I can be in the
fashion by not paying for it."

"It is a most happy thing for you, dear child, that you are kept under
some little control. What you would do, I have not the least idea, if
you were not afraid of dear father, as you are. The worst of it is that
he is never here now for as much as two days together. And then he is so
glad to see us that he cannot attend to our discipline or take notice of
our dresses."

"Ha! you have inspired me!" exclaimed Dolly, who rejoiced in teasing
Faith. "The suggestion is yours, and I will act upon it. From the
village of Brighthelmstone, which is growing very fine, I will
procure upon the strictest credit a new Classic dress, with all tackle
complete--as dear father so well expresses it--and then I will promenade
me on the beach, with Charles in best livery and a big stick behind me.
How then will Springhaven rejoice, and every one that hath eyes clap a
spy-glass to them! And what will old Twemlow say, and that frump of
an Eliza, who condescends to give me little hints sometimes about
tightening up SO, perhaps, and letting out so, and permitting a little
air to come in HERE--"

"Do be off, you wicked little animal!" cried Faith, who in spite of
herself could not help laughing, so well was Dolly mimicking Eliza
Twemlow's voice, and manner, and attitude, and even her figure, less
fitted by nature for the Classic attire; "you are wasting all my time,
and doing worse with your own. Be off, or I'll take a stick to 'e, as
old Daddy Stakes says to the boys."

Taking advantage of this state of things, the younger Miss Darling set
forth by herself to dwell upon the beauty of the calm May sea, and her
own pretty figure glassed in tidal pools. She knew that she would show
to the utmost of her gifts, with her bright complexion softly gleaming
in the sun, and dark gray eyes through their deep fringe receiving and
returning tenfold the limpid glimmer of the shore. And she felt that the
spring of the year was with her, the bound of old Time that renews his
youth and powers of going at any pace; when the desire of the young is
to ride him at full gallop, and the pleasure of the old is to stroke his
nose and think.

Dolly, with everything in her favour, youth and beauty, the time of
year, the time of day, and t