Serena and Amelia examined the dresses made for them from a length of blue and white muslin. They even had new pinafores and stockings. “Thank you, Em, I love my dresses.” Millie ran the material of one through her fingers enjoying its softness. “And your lilac and silver gown is beautiful too.”

“I know, Millie. I was not sure such a colour combination was entirely suitable for someone my age, but it does look lovely. I think this new fashion is very flattering, especially for someone who is as tall and thin as I am.”

“The colour is very becoming, my dear,” Lady Althea said, noticing for the first time how much weight her eldest daughter had shed.

The outfits to be worn on the journey were hung ready for the following day and the others carefully packed, in tissue paper, in the waiting trunks. Glebe House was to be closed down; Holland sheets covered all the furniture and the shutters were locked. Cook and her husband Potts, the sole outdoor man, were to remain behind to act as caretakers.

As all their horses had been sold there were no grooms or stable boys to find employment for.

Mary, the girls’ nurse, and Jenny, Emily's Abigail and Edwards, her mother's dresser, were obviously to accompany them. Sally, the one remaining live in servant, had found employment locally. The daily women, who came to do the heavy cleaning and laundry, had been given a guinea as compensation.

Everything was as it should be. Emily was still concerned that her mother was too frail to cope with the rigours of a two-day journey but Lady Althea assured her she was stout enough to travel.

Five days after the luxurious coach had first appeared at Glebe House it returned to collect the Gibson family.