for many years, and had always been on sociable and sometimes intimate terms. Mrs. Douglas could almost have become attached to her neighbour, had it not been for the prolonged youthfulness of Lady Eskdale's appearance, and the uninterrupted and increasing prosperity of her family. The provocation grew too great for endurance. The ladies had become mothers at the same time, and the comparison of their babies, monthly nurses, and embroidered caps had been the commencement of their intimacy; then came the engagement of nursery governesses, and discussions on the comparative merits of Swiss bonnes, highly accomplished French governesses, poor clergyman's daughters, or respectable young, ignorant women. Then the respective right shoulders of Sophia Beaufort and Sarah Douglas took a fit of growing, without due regard to the stationary dispositions of the left.
There are two years in every woman's life in which the undue size of her right shoulder is the bane of her own life, and of everybody about her. Mrs. Douglas called constantly at Eskdale Castle to satisfy herself that Sophia was growing absolutely deformed; and Lady Eskdale owned she should fret dreadfully about her poor darling if she did not think Mrs. Douglas so much more to be pitied on her dear Sarah's account.
The girls grew up perfectly straight, of course.
This period of reclining boards and dumb-bells was the most flourishing age of the Eskdale and Douglas friendship. After that it gradually declined. There was a slight revival when the two ladies entered into a confederacy against an exorbitant drawing-master; but he was shortly reduced to terms; and when he had consented to walk fifteen miles, and give a lesson of two hours for fifteen shillings, instead of a guinea, all farther community of interests on the subject of accomplishments ceased. The Eskdales soon after received an accession of fortune, and
