Sunday morning at church, accompanied--as though attended with a retinue
of servitors--by Mistress Wimpole and her two sisters, whose plain faces,
awkward shape, and still more awkward attire were such a foil to her
glowing loveliness as set it in high relief. It was seldom that the
coach from Wildairs Hall drew up before the lych-gate, but upon rare
Sunday mornings Mistress Wimpole and her two charges contrived, if Sir
Jeoffry was not in an ill-humour and the coachman was complaisant, to be
driven to service. Usually, however, they trudged afoot, and, if the day
chanced to be sultry, arrived with their snub-nosed faces of a high and
shiny colour, or if the country roads were wet, with their petticoats
bemired.

This morning, when the coach drew up, the horses were well groomed, the
coachman smartly dressed, and a footman was in attendance, who sprang to
earth and opened the door with a flourish.

The loiterers in the churchyard, and those who were approaching the gate
or passing towards the church porch, stared with eyes wide stretched in
wonder and incredulity. Never had such a thing before been beheld or
heard of as what they now saw in broad daylight.

Mistress Clorinda, clad in highest town fashion, in brocades and silver
lace and splendid furbelows, stepped forth from the chariot with the air
of a queen. She had the majestic composure of a young lady who had worn
nothing less modish than such raiment all her life, and who had prayed
decorously beneath her neighbours' eyes since she had left her nurse's
care.

Her sisters and their governess looked timorous, and as if they knew not
where to cast their eyes for shamefacedness; but not so Mistress