'I tell you what, Susan darling,' she replied, 'I won't tell you now, but I'll come to you after you have gone to bed, for I don't want to chat on matters it would be difficult to drop, if that old lady came in suddenly atop of us. I think she has had a little too much to drink, and is merry; another time she might speak quite another kind of talk. But come upstairs. I want you to try on my stays, for positively you must leave off wearing such barbarous ones as yours, and we must go to Worcester tomorrow, and see what the shops there can produce, and if we can't get what I fancy there, I must write to London for some to be sent down for you to fit on. Such lovely bubbies as these,' said she, laying her two hands on my breasts, 'must not be squashed flat and displaced, but be left free to rise and fall.'

So upstairs we trotted to my room. The first thing Lucia saw on entering was my wet drawers spread out on the bed.

'Good gracious, Susan! Why did you leave those things there?'

'Why? What harm if I did?'

'Because if old Mother Warmart should have happened to see them, her suspicions would at once have been roused, and goodness only knows what she would have thought-very likely that you had been had by a man.'

'Well, Lucia dear, I am sorry; but indeed I never thought there was any reason to hide anything I did. I know you meant no harm, and I am sure I did not, when we had the tickling match.'

'My dear, let me tell you that, although all the world does what we did, and a good deal more too, yet, just as our cunnies are covered up from sight, so are the deeds done by them. So we will put your drawers away. They are nearly dry, and if they stain at all, it will be very slightly. Martha will not guess the truth.'