instant," replied Marvel in a low voice,

"Please yourself, child," said Miss Milly, throwing back her head with
much disdain; "but I'm sure you'll please nobody else with such a dowdy
thing as that you have on. Lord! I should like to see her walk the
streets of York on a Sunday that figure. Lord! how Mrs. Stokes would
laugh!"

Here she paused, and several of her fair audience were struck with the
terrible idea of being laughed at by a person whom they had never seen,
and whom they were never likely to see; and transporting themselves
in imagination into the streets of York, felt all the horror of being
stared at, in an unfashionable bonnet, by Mrs. Stokes. "Gracious me!
Miss Milly, do pray be sure to have mine sent from York afore next
Sunday," cried one of the country belles: "and, gracious me! don't
forget mine, Miss Mill," was reiterated by every voice but Lucy's, as
the crowd followed Miss Harrison out of the churchyard. Great was the
contempt felt for her by the company; but she was proof against their
ridicule, and calmly ended, as she began, with saying, "I cannot afford
it."

"She is a very prudent girl," repeated Wright, in a low voice, to
Marvel.

"But I hope this is not stinginess," whispered Marvel. "I would not
marry such a stingy animal as Goodenough has taken to wife for all the
world. Do you know she has half starved the servant boy that lived with
them? There he is, yonder, getting over the stile: did you ever see such
a miserable-looking creature?--He can tell you fifty stories of dame
Goodenough's stinginess. I would not marry a stingy woman for the whole