Flowers adorned her Leghorn bonnet, and her green silk gown boasted four flounces,--such, then, was, I am told, the fashion.

She wore, also, a very handsome black shawl, extremely heavy, though the day was oppressively hot, and with a deep border; a smart sevigni brooch of yellow topazes glittered in her breast; a huge gilt serpent glared from her waistband; her hair, or more properly speaking her front, was tortured into very tight curls, and her feet into very tight half-laced boots, from which the fragrance of new leather had not yet departed.

It was this last infliction, for il faut souffrir pour etre belle, which somewhat yet more acerbated the ordinary acid of Mrs.Morton's temper.

The sweetest disposition is ruffled when the shoe pinches; and it so happened that Mrs.Roger Morton was one of those ladies who always have chilblains in the winter and corns in the summer.
"So you say your sister is a beauty ?" "Was a beauty, Mrs.M.,--was a beauty.

People alter." "A bad conscience, Mr.Morton, is--" "My dear, can't you walk faster ?" "If you had my corns, Mr.Morton, you would not talk in that way!" The happy pair sank into silence, only broken by sundry "How d'ye dos ?" and "Good mornings!" interchanged with their friends, till they arrived at the inn.
"Let us go up quickly," said Mrs.Morton.
And quiet--quiet to gloom, did the inn, so noisy overnight, seem by morning.