speckledy was certainly old, and a little uncertain about its shape, while the new speckledy, which Cathie had on at the moment, was, by the standard of Ladies' Dress, unsuitably florid.
She surveyed this, comparing it with that which the very small-headed female was wearing in Ladies' Dress in the pier-glass of her wardrobe.
"Most unfortunate," she said to herself. "The old speckledy a year or two ago would have been just the thing now. Perhaps, if Ja—Arbuthnot irons it. It's just like 'walking-dress, suitable for going out with the shooters.' It's as like it as a pea."
Aunt Cathie rang the bell, and Arbuthnot appeared.
"I'll take the old speckledy," she said, "and the blue serge with the yellow facings, and I shall travel in what I've got on. That will be three. And the Sunday satin."
"Yes, miss. Did you ring, miss?" asked Arbuthnot. The question was excusable, since there were eight complete days yet before she need begin to pack. It could hardly have been for this that Aunt Cathie rang.
"Yes; the dresses as I tell you. Iron the old speckledy, Jane; that was what I rang about. Iron it to-day, please, and let me see how it comes out. That will be four day-gowns, won't it?"
Arbuthnot looked incredulous.
"Four day-gowns for a week's visit?" she asked.
Cathie was strong on the subject.
"Yes, certainly four," she said. "There's the old speckledy, Take it down now. One can't tell. It may turn out all right. I've seen a dress so altered by a good ironing that you wouldn't know it."
Still following the lines so uncompromisingly laid down in these papers, a tea-gown was the next question for decision. Shortly before lunch-time Cathie decided against it. With a maid in attendance, she could easily have tea upstairs when she came in from walking with the shooters, and rest in her room till dinner, since no amount of carpentering, however drastic, would transform any of the gowns at her disposal into a resemblance, however distant, to what a "lady of title" said was being worn now at tea. Then came the question of evening-gowns, and over these Cathie could breathe a sigh, not of resignation, but of passionate content. She was more than neat in respect of them: she was gorgeous. Even her second-best was like—quite like—a new
