“Yes, ma’am,” said Elsie.

“I can see a very slight likeness.  I was very glad to hear such good accounts of your sister getting a situation with some rich colonial people in London; and I hear, too, that you are a remarkably good hand in your own line, so I have come to ask you to make me a cap and a bonnet that will keep on my head; and that is what I cannot get the fashionable milliner I have employed so long to make me this year back.”

“I can make to please Peggy Walker,” said Elsie, smiling; “but you will wish for more style—­a compromise between fashion and comfort.”

“With a decided leaning towards comfort,” said Miss Thomson.  “Are you still living with Peggy Walker?  An admirable woman she is, and one whom I have the greatest respect for; but does she take good care of you?  You look thin and ill.”

“I am not very well, but Peggy is everything that is kind and careful.  I have missed my sister, sadly.  I hope, however, to see her soon, for Mrs. Phillips has been so good as to ask me to spend a few weeks in London, and Mrs. Dunn is going to spare me.”

“Well, I am glad to hear it,” said Miss Thomson, “for it seems to me you want a change and a rest.  Your cousin is making great alterations at Cross Hall.”

“Alterations for the better,” said Elsie.  “He told us about them.”

“Well, I’m not clear about the allotments; but the cottages I do most highly approve of, and I am coming upon my landlord to build me eight or nine, after the same plan, as near as may be.  The Allendale cot-houses are very old, and I will never consent to have my workpeople as badly lodged as they have been.  If I asked for five hundred pounds to add to the farmhouse, I would get it at once, for I am a good tenant; but my landlord demurred at such an expenditure for cot-houses.  I think I will carry my point, however.”

“You know,” said Miss Rennie to Miss Thomson, “of the new neighbour you are likely to get at Moss Tower?  Mamma wants to have a talk with you about Laura’s marriage, as you know the Dalzells.”

“Oh, yes, certainly, I’ll call on your mother.  I don’t forget any of my cousins, though they are a few times removed.  But, dear me, Eliza, that poor girl Melville looks ill; the brae she has had to climb has been owre stey for her.  I must look in on Peggy Walker, and hear what she says about her,” said Miss Thomson, as they moved into mademoiselle’s department and gave orders about Grace’s frock, while Miss Wilson looked over dresses, made and unmade, and received hints and suggestions from any quarter she could.

Elsie wished that she could be out of the establishment before Miss Wilson’s wedding order came to it; so she was very glad when, after a longer day than usual, in which she had exercised her utmost skill for Miss Thomson’s behoof, and certainly pleased herself with her work, she returned home and found Mr. Brandon sitting talking in his usual cheerful way to Peggy and the old man.