to her, and agreed to say she had
lent it to me for the performance. I believe she was afraid that I would
change my mind, or that you would resume it as a seignorial waif; for,
after she had walked a few turns with it wrapped around her, merely by
way of taking possession, she dispatched it by a special messenger to
her apartment at the Well."

"She may go to the devil," said Mowbray, "for a greedy unconscionable
jade, who has varnished over a selfish, spiteful heart, that is as hard
as a flint, with a fine glossing of taste and sensibility!"

"Nay, but, John," replied his sister, "she really had something to
complain of in the present case. The shawl had been bespoken on her
account, or very nearly so--she showed me the tradesman's letter--only
some agent of yours had come in between with the ready money, which no
tradesman can resist.--Ah, John! I suspect half of your anger is owing
to the failure of a plan to mortify poor Lady Pen, and that she has more
to complain of than you have.--Come, come, you have had the advantage of
her in the first display of this fatal piece of finery, if wearing it on
my poor shoulders can be called a display--e'en make her welcome to the
rest for peace's sake, and let us go down to these good folks, and you
shall see how pretty and civil I shall behave."

Mowbray, a spoiled child, and with all the petted habits of indulgence,
was exceedingly fretted at the issue of the scheme which he had formed
for mortifying Lady Penelope; but he saw at once the necessity of saying
nothing more to his sister on the subject. Vengeance he privately
muttered against Lady Pen, whom he termed an absolute harpy in
blue-stockings; unjustly forgetting, that in the very important affair
at issue, he himself had been the first to interfere with and defeat her
ladyship's designs on the garment in question.

"But I will blow her," he said, "I will blow her ladyship's conduct in
the business! She shall not outwit a poor whimsical girl like Clara,
without hearing it on more sides than one."

With this Christian and gentlemanlike feeling towards Lady Penelope, he
escorted his sister into the eating-room, and led her to her proper
place at the head of the table. It was the negligence displayed in her
dress, which occasioned the murmur of surprise that greeted Clara on her
entrance. Mowbray, as he placed his sister in her chair, made her
general apology for her late appearance, and her riding-habit. "Some
fairies