"You shan't wear it, Miss Elaine, and that's flat. Once take it out in this sun, you'll have the straw burnt as yaller as them sunflowers."
"Where's my second best?" grumbled the girl, turning to the press.
"On the Philmouth Road, for all I knows; at least, that's where you last left it, ain't it?"
"And am I to go out in my garden-hat—with Lady Mabel Wynch-Frère?" cried Elaine, aghast.
"I don't see no other way for it," said Jane, calmly, drawing her thimble down a seam to flatten it, with a rasping noise which set her charge's teeth on edge.
"Well, Jane, I never heard of such a thing!" she burst forth after a pause of speechless indignation.
"I can't help it, miss; I must teach you to take care of your clothes. You're not going flaunting over to Mrs. Battishill's in that ostrich feather o' yours. Maybe, next time you drop your hat in the road, you'll remember to pick it up again."
Surely Elaine's fairy godmother spoke through the untutored lips of Jane Gollop!
Instead of presenting herself to Claud in a headgear covered with yellow satin ribbon and a bright blue feather, Elsa appeared downstairs in her wide-brimmed garden-hat, simply trimmed with muslin; and narrowly escaped looking picturesque.
How different was the road to Poole, now that she trod it with such companions! Her heart was light as air, her young spirits were all stretched eagerly, almost yearningly forward into the unknown country whose border she had crossed so lately.