bye, what an odious thing is a blue coat with brass buttons, shining as if to stare you out of countenance, and reflecting in every button a concave composition, which you recognise as a caricature of yourself. No lady should dance with a man who wears a blue coat and brass buttons.] For Mr. Rosedale did Laura wear vestal white, when every one else was à la Zamiel, and a cottage bonnet—a cottage ornée, to be sure—when every other head was in a hat.
Still, two seasons, besides watering places, had passed away fruitlessly; and the Misses Fergussons, of whom two only had yet passed the Rubicon of balls, opera, &c. coming out, were still the fair but unappropriated adjectives of the noun-matrimonial husband; still it was something to be, "ready, ay ready"—the family motto. Of them nothing more can be said, than that Laura was pretty, and enacted the beauty; Elisabeth was plain, and therefore was to be sensible: the one sat at her harp, the other at her work-box.
Now, Mrs. Fergusson thought a visit to Lady Alicia a sad waste of time: there were no sons, no brothers, at least as bad as none—for the Earl was in the country, the younger abroad; still she was too little established in
