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women. The other ladies had fallen in graciously with the idea (they
were inclined to enthuse over the "sweet young bride"), and according
to custom one Miss Tibbits, a spinster of large leisure and masterful
ways, had undertaken to procure the necessary material. For years
donors and recipients alike had meekly suffered her domination. She
chose the material, settled what garments should be made and in what
style, and who should receive them when made.

On the afternoon in question Miss Tibbits duly descended from her
brougham, bearing a parcel containing the material for the blouses
which Mrs Grantly volunteered to cut out. Miss Tibbits undid the
parcel and displayed the contents to the nine ladies assembled round
the dining-room table.

Mrs Grantly was seen to regard it with marked disapproval, and hers was
an expressive countenance.

"May I ask," she began in the honeyed, "society" tone that in her own
family was recognised as the sure precursor of battle, "why the poor
should be dressed in dusters?"

The eight ladies concentrated their gaze upon the roll of material
which certainly did bear a strong resemblance to the bundles offered by
drapers at sale times as "strong, useful, and much reduced."

"It is the usual thing," Miss Tibbits replied shortly, "we have to
consider utility, not ornament."

Mrs Grantly stretched across the table, swiftly seized the material,
gathered it up under her chin, and with a dramatic gesture stood up so
that it fell draped about her.

"Look at me!" she exclaimed. "If I had to wear clothes made of stuff
like this, I should go straight to the Devil!"

And at that very moment, just as she proclaimed in a loud voice the
downward path she would tread if clad in the material Miss Tibbits had
selected, the door was opened, and Mr Molyneux was announced.

The ladies gasped (except Marjory Ffolliot, who had dissolved into
helpless laughter at the sight of her large and portly parent draped in
yards of double-width red and brown check), but Mrs Grantly was no whit
abashed.

"Look at me, Mr Molyneux," she cried. "Can you conceive any
self-respecting young woman ever taking any pleasure in a garment made
of _this_?"

"A garment," the vicar repeated in wonderment, "is it for a garment?"

"Yes, and not an undergarment either," Mrs Grantly retorted. "Now you
are here, you shall tell us plainly . . . are the things we are to make
supposed to give any pleasure to the poor crea