'Mercy on us! you cannot wear such absurd fandangles.'

'I would not offend Mrs. Jose for all the world, and she says such pretty things about them.'

'She is a darling, and our cousin, though mamma is too gorgeous a personage to admit it. But Nebuchadnezzar's image had feet of clay and the awful erection of the Tomkin-Jones family has common soil at the bottom of it. But those ear-pendants are ridiculous.'

'I shall wear them when I go back to Axmouth.'

'As you will, but mother will never suffer them here. I may as well take this opportunity to speak to you about our family. Shall I sit down, Winnie? Well, mamma's great delight is blowing wind-bags, and we prick them, Sylvana out of malice, I out of mischief. But no sooner have we shrivelled one up than we find her puffing out another. After all, it hurts no one and it amuses her. Nobody is deceived. No one believes in her stories. They are like wax apricots. They look very well, but bite and you find they are emptiness and your mouth is full of beeswax. Mother is concerned because no street or square in Bath is named after papa. But no one cares about him, or remembers him now that he is dead. Moreover, in Bath people come and go, some for a season, some for two. He was a doctor, an estimable man, and, as doctors go, no worse than his fellows. He once put the Prince Regent's insides right with a pill, that is all; and out of that pill mamma has blown up a balloon. He did not make a fortune, or we should be better off, living in the square and not hanging on to it. But with all her grand talk mother is a good woman, and such as know her intimately learn how much better she is than all the flummery with which she surrounds herself. Sylvana and I do our utmost to tear down her piles of pretence, but it is lost labour. She is like Jack the chimneysweep on May Day, who dances under an extinguisher of greens and sham flowers. Unhappily, with him it pays, with mamma it fails. Take these eardrops and put them away till you return to Jose-land. I want to talk to you about Frank Wardroper. Do you care for him?'

'I—no! How should I?'

Winefred looked genuinely surprised.

'But,' said Jesse, 'he has been paying you marked attention.'

'He has been civil. He chose my hat and gowns.'

'That was it. If anything could rivet his affections it would be that. You are sure you do not feel for him more than ordinary interest?'