"What? before ten o'clock. How vulgar you are, father."
"Very well: if you cannot get up new flying gibs, go to sea with the old ones."
"Well, I suppose we might send for Madam Pantanosi to call in the morning; but, dear me, there are our dresses all in the work-room, not one of them done. You don't expect Athalia is going to finish them to-night, do you?"
"Have you no others?"
"What if we have? the Grundys know that we have new ones making, and of course, will expect to see them. You don't expect your daughters, I hope, to wear old dresses, on a tour to the Lakes?"
"Why not? That is the place to wear them."
"You may talk, father, but it is out of the question."
"Well, settle it your own way. I go to-morrow, and if you are going with me, you had better be getting ready; besides, let me tell you, young Wendall is going up too. We are going to have some great sport, fishing."
That decided Elsie. If George Wendall and the Grundys were going, she must go, for he and Minnie Grundy needed watching. She would go, if she wore the old hat, and a dress that had been worn twice before.
"Where is that seamstress? she must work all night, and get my dress done any way."