She opened the door with a welcoming smile, having practically no deportment to go with the cap: human nature does not freeze readily anywhere.

Dora had to leave the piano: Miss Filkin decided that when fifteen had come she would change her chair.

Fifteen soon came, the young ladies mostly in light silks or muslins cut square, not low, in the neck, with half-sleeves.

This moderation was prescribed in Elgin, where evening dress was more a matter of material than of cut, a thing in itself symbolical if it were desirable to consider social evolution here.

For middle-aged ladies high necks and long sleeves were usual; and Mrs Milburn might almost have been expected to appear thus, in a nicely made black broche, perhaps.