“Well, grandmama! the moral of all this is, that I shall become busier than any body ever was before, when we get home; but in the meantime, I may take a good dose of idleness now at Holiday House, to prepare me for settling to very hard labour afterwards,” said Laura, hastily tying [78] ]on her bonnet. “I wonder if I shall ever be as merry and happy again!”

Most unfortunately, all the time of Laura’s visit at Holiday House, she had been, as usual, extremely heedless, in taking no care whatever of her clothes; consequently her blue merino frock had been cruelly torn; her green silk dress became frightfully soiled; four white frocks were utterly ruined; her Swiss muslin seemed a perfect object, and her pink gingham was both torn and discoloured. Regularly every evening Lady Harriet told her to take better care, or she would be a bankrupt in frocks altogether; but whatever her grandmama said on that subject, the moment she was out of sight, it went out of mind, till another dress had shared the same deplorable fate.

At last, one morning, as soon as Laura got up, Lady Harriet gravely led her towards a large table on which all the ill-used frocks had been laid out in a row; and a most dismal sight they were! Such a collection of stains and fractures was probably never seen before! A beggar would scarcely have thanked her for her blue merino; and the green silk frock looked like the tattered cover of a worn-out umbrella.

“Laura,” said Lady Harriet, “in Switzerland a lady’s wardrobe descends to many generations; but nobody will envy your successor! One might fancy that a wild beast had torn you to pieces every day! I wonder what an old clothesman would give for your whole baggage! It is only fit for being used as rags in a paper manufactory!”

Poor Laura’s face became perfectly pink when she saw the destruction that a very short time had occasioned: and she looked from one tattered garment to another, in melancholy silence, thinking how lately they had all been fresh and beautiful; but now not a vestige of their former splendour remained. At last her grandmama broke the awful silence, by saying,

[79]
]“My dear girl! I have warned you very often lately that we are not at home, where your frocks could be washed and mended as soon as they were spoiled; but without considering this you have, every day, destroyed several, so now the maid finds, on examining your drawers, that there is only one clean frock remaining!”

Laura looked gravely at the last clean frock, and wondered much what her grandmama would say next.

“I do not wish to make a prisoner of you at home during this very fine weather, yet in five minutes after leaving the house, you will, of course, become unfit to be seen, which I should very much regret, as a number of fine people are coming to dinner, whom you would like to see. The great General Courteney, and all his Aide-de-Camps, intend to be here on their way from a review, besides many officers and ladies who know your papa very well, and wish to see my little grand-daughter; but I would not on any account allow you to appear before them, looking like a perfect tatterdemalion, as you too often do. They would suppose you had been drawn backwards through a hedge! Now my plan is, that you shall wear this old pink gingham for romping all morning in the garden, and dress in your last clean frock for dinner; but remember to keep out of sight till then. Remain within the garden walls, as none of the company will be walking there, but be sure to avoid the terrace and shrubberies till you are made tidy, for I shall be both angry and mortified if your papa’s friends see you for the first time looking like rag-fair.”

Laura promised to remember her grandmama’s injunctions, and to remain invisible all morning; so off she set to the garden, singing and skipping with joy, as she ran towards her pleasant hiding-place, planning twenty ways in which the day might be delightfully spent alone. Before long she had strung a long necklace of daisies—she had put many bright leaves in a book to dry—she had made a [80] ]large ball of cowslips to toss in the air—she had watered the hyacinths, with a watering-pot, till they were nearly washed away—she had plucked more roses than could possibly be carried, and eat as many gooseberries and cherries as it was convenient to swallow,—but still there were several hours remaining to be enjoyed, and nothing very particular, that Laura could think of, to do.

Meantime, the miserable pink frock was torn worse than ever, and seemed to be made of nothing but holes, for every gooseberry-bush in the garden had got a share of it. Laura wished pink gingham frocks had never been invented, and wondered why nothing stronger could be made! Having become perfectly tired of the garden, she now wished herself anywhere else in the world, and thought she was no better off, confined in this way within four walls, than a canary bird in a cage.