So it fell that Mistress Anne could go to London without pangs of
conscience at leaving her sister in the country and alone. The
stateliness of the town mansion, my Lady Dunstanwolde's retinue of
lacqueys and serving-women, her little black page, who waited on her and
took her pug dogs to walk, her wardrobe, and jewels, and equipages, were
each and all marvels to her, but seemed to her mind so far befitting that
she remembered, wondering, the days when she had darned the tattered
tapestry in her chamber, and changed the ribbands and fashions of her
gowns. Being now attired fittingly, though soberly as became her, she
was not in these days--at least, as far as outward seeming went--an
awkward blot upon the scene when she appeared among her sister's company;
but at heart she was as timid and shrinking as ever, and never mingled
with the guests in the great rooms when she could avoid so doing. Once
or twice she went forth with Clorinda in her coach and six, and saw the
glittering world, while she drew back into her corner of the equipage and
gazed with all a country-bred woman's timorous admiration.

"'Twas grand and like a beautiful show!" she said, when she came home the
first time. "But do not take me often, sister; I am too plain and shy,
and feel that I am naught in it."

But though she kept as much apart from the great World of Fashion as she
could, she contrived to know of all her sister's triumphs; to see her
when she went forth in her bravery, though 'twere but to drive in the
Mall; to be in her closet with her on great nights when her tirewomen
were decking her in brocades and jewels, that she might show her highest
beauty at some assembly or ball of State. And at all these times, as
also at all others, she knew that she but shared her own love and dazzled
admiration with my Lord Dunstanwolde, whose tenderness, being so fed by