"Isn't she—isn't it beautiful?" murmured Mrs. Penfold, in an ecstasy. "But then, if it had been a morning cotton, it would have been all the same." And she proceeded to wrap a woolen shawl round her so carefully as if she was something that might be destroyed at too hard a touch. "Mind she has this wound round her like this when she comes out, sir, and be sure and keep the window up."
"And don't let the air breathe on me, or I shall melt, uncle," laughed Stella.
"Upon my word, I'm half disposed to think so," he muttered.
Then they entered the fly—Mrs. Penfold disposing the short train of the despised sateen with gingerly care—and started.
"How have you managed it all?" asked the old man, quite bewildered. "I feel quite strange conveying a brilliant young lady."
"And I feel—frightened out of my life," said Stella, with a little breath and a laugh.
"Then you conceal your alarm with infinite art," he retorted.
"That's just it," she assented. "My heart is beating like a steam hammer, but, like an Indian at the stake, I am determined to smile to the end. They will be very terrible, uncle, will they not?"
"Who?" he asked.