go as one who was
to be the chosen bride of Earl Lovel. Of course she must be duly
caparisoned. Mr. Goffe made difficulties,--as lawyers always do,--but
the needful money was at last forthcoming. Representations had been
made in high legal quarters,--to the custodians for the moment of the
property which was to go to the established heir of the late Earl.
They had been made conjointly by Goffe and Goffe, and Norton and
Flick, and the money was forthcoming. Mr. Goffe suggested that a
great deal could not be wanted all at once for the young lady's
dress. The Countess smiled as she answered, "You hardly know, Mr.
Goffe, the straits to which we have been reduced. If I tell you that
this dress which I have on is the only one in which I can fitly
appear even in your chambers, perhaps you will think that I demean
myself." Mr. Goffe was touched, and signed a sufficient cheque. They
were going to succeed, and then everything would be easy. Even if
they did not succeed, he could get it passed in the accounts. And if
not that--well, he had run greater risks than this for clients whose
causes were of much less interest than this of the Countess and her
daughter.

The Countess had mentioned her own gown, and had spoken strict truth
in what she had said of it;--but not a shilling of Mr. Goffe's
money went to the establishment of a wardrobe for herself. That her
daughter should go down to Yoxham Rectory in a manner befitting the
daughter of Earl Lovel was at this moment her chief object. Things
were purchased by which the poor girl, unaccustomed to such finery,
was astounded and almost stupefied. Two needlewomen were taken
in at the lodgings in Wyndham Street; parcels from Swan and
Edgar's,--Marshall and Snellgrove were not then, or at least had not
loomed to the grandeur of an entire block of houses,--addressed to
Lady Anna Lovel, were frequent at the door, somewhat to the disgust
of the shopmen, who did not like to send goods to Lady Anna Lovel in
Wyndham Street. But ready money was paid, and the parcels came home.
Lady Anna, poor girl, was dismayed much by the parcels, but she was
at her wits' end when the lady's-maid came,--a young lady, herself
so sweetly attired that Lady Anna would have envied her in the old
Cumberland days. "I shall not know what to say to her, mamma," said
Lady Anna.

"It will all come in two days, if you will only be equal to the
occasion," said the Countess, who in providing her child with this
expensi