It seemed, on the following morning, as though she had done so, for she visited her aunt before Abby was out of bed, eager to show her several fashion-plates from the latest issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal,and hopeful of coaxing her to sally forth before breakfast on a visit to the dressmaker on South Parade. In this she failed, Abby pointing out to her that her Aunt Selina, no early riser, would be very much hurt if excluded from the expedition. She added a reminder that in all matters of taste and fashion Selina was infallible.

Fanny pouted, but submitted, knowing the truth of this dictum. She might stigmatize many of Selina’s notions as fusty, but no one had ever cast a slur on Selina’s eye for the elegant and the becoming. In her youth she had been the least good-looking but the most modish of the Wendover girls; in her middle age, and endowed with an easy competence, she enjoyed the reputation of being the best-dressed woman in Bath. If Fanny did not, like Abby, seek her advice, she was shrewd enough to respect her judgment; so that when, presently, she showed Selina the sketch of a grossly overtrimmed walking-dress her secret longing to be seen abroad in this confection was nipped in the bud by Selina’s devastating criticism. “Oh, dear!” said Selina, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “All those frills, and tucks, and ribbons—! So—so deedy!”

So nothing more was seen of that fashion-plate, and in due course all three ladies set out in Miss Wendover’s new barouche for South Parade, where Madame Lisette’s elegant showrooms were situated.

Madame Lisette, who was born Eliza Mudford, enjoyed Royal Patronage, but although she was the particular protégée of the Princess Elizabeth, in whose service she had started her career, and rarely failed to receive orders from Bath’s noblest and most fashionable visitors, the Misses Wendover ranked high amongst her favourite clients: they were rich, they were resident, and they set off to the greatest advantage the fruits of her genius.