"THE

HESE garden parties would be all very well if one could only know beforehand what the weather would be; but in this changeable, uncertain climate of ours one can never have an idea what to put on. If one ventures to wear a light summer dress, there is sure to be a cold east wind or a thunderstorm; and if one wraps up in order to be prepared for the worst, then the sun comes out with full midsummer intensity, and one is scorched and melted. I never was so vexed and mortified in my life!"

The speaker was a lady, of course, and seemed to be under the impression that the changes of heat and cold, rain and sunshine, were connected

"CARA'S DELIBERATE MOVEMENTS EXASPERATED HIM.'

"

in some mysterious and ungracious way with her own changes of raiment.

There was really nothing to complain of in the weather just then. Although a little close and oppressive by reason of the stillness of the atmosphere, it was as bright and warm as any one could wish or expect in the month of June. But the morning had been overcast, and thunder had been heard in the distance; and Mrs. De Wilde and her daughter had suffered a great deal of perplexity in consequence before leaving home, and had more than once put on and taken off again their light summer garments, adorned with costly ribbons, rich feathers, and Parisian flowers, which

might have vied with the brilliant colouring of the bedding-out plants at Pimpernel Bank, if only they could have "known beforehand" what the weather would be.

They had been looking forward for some days to a delightful garden party where they might expect to meet all the world and his wife. There had been no rain for several weeks, and they had not doubted that they would have a fair day and a pleasant visit. They had special reasons of their own, which we dare not betray, for wishing to appear at their best on this particular occasion; and just at the last moment before leaving home the weather had turned against them. The gathering of distant clouds with increasing darkness, the continuous murmuring of thunder, and other tokens of a coming storm, had caused them to fear that the garden party at Pimpernel Bank would not take place. At the last moment they had hastily laid aside their lighter and more costly garments and assumed a quieter costume, and had started, resolved that nothing less than a positive downpour should stop them. And now, when it was too late to change again, the thunder had ceased, the storm seemed to have blown over, the sun was again shining in his strength, and every dark cloud had disappeared.

Except perhaps the cloud upon Mrs. De Wilde's brow as she stepped from her carriage, and, followed by her daughter Caroline, or Cara, as she was usually called, walked with no light step upon the smooth-shaven lawn, oppressed with the warmth of her thick dress, and regretting with poignant sorrow the lighter and richer decorations which had been left at home.

It was certainly very mortifying. Mrs. De Wilde fretted and fumed, and felt much warmer than even her warm apparel need have rendered her, as she noticed the bright, light, airy, fairy look of a group of young ladies in the middle distance. There were the Miss Prettiwells in bodies of azure blue, with arms of amber, and spotted skirts folded together across the knees and gathered up behind, giving them the appearance of some kind of bright-hued tropical beetle. One could fancy as they rested on their toes, thrown forward by the claw-like heels of their Parisian boots, that they had never been intended to stand erect, but were balancing themselves with difficulty in that posture before spreading their wings to fly away. There, too, were the Miss Gemmes, and their cousin, Emily Garnet, clad in some gauzy material with spangles of silver which glittered in the sunshine, and two other young ladies, sisters, with fair hair, pale complexions, light blue eyes, and white muslin dresses, altogether so colourless and transparent that they could scarcely be seen at all.

Mrs. De Wilde felt utterly oppressed and miserable, as she glanced from these graceful figures at her poor daughter Cara, whose warm dress and comparatively plain hat placed her sadly at a disadvantage.

"I wish we had never come," said Cara, understanding her mother's feelings only too well, though it would scarcely be correct to say that she sympathised with them. "I hate these gar

den parties. I said it would be fine. I told you how it would be, but you never will listen to any thing I say."

Poor Mrs. De Wilde had been listening to nothing else but her daughter's complaints for the last hour or more. Ever since they had entered the carriage which was to convey them to Pimpernel Bank Cara had been telling her "how it would be." The Miss Gemmes, Emily Garnet, and the transparent sisters had, with instinctive prevision, been cited as examples of "how it would be," and now there they were, exactly as Cara had predicted; and there was she, Cara herself and her mother, in painful and ridiculous contrast with all the rest of the company.

Everybody, literally everybody, was in light, seasonable, summer costume, Mrs. De Wilde and her daughter alone excepted. The scene was elegant, graceful, sylph-like, a perfect picture— "a nineteenth century Watteau," as Cara bitterly described it, "with two nuns approaching." Even the gentlemen wore tennis flannels of the most summery cut and colours, and sprang about in them like grasshoppers.

It was cruel, Cara said, and might so easily have been avoided. Every one else had evidently known that there would be no rain. She wondered dear mamma had not required her to bring her waterproof and the largest "gingham" that could be found in the house, instead of a parasol: her dear mamma might not mind being a dowdy herself in the midst of so much that was elegant and graceful and gay, but she, Cara, had her feelings. Mrs. De Wilde would have warmly repudiated the idea of being a dowdy, and might justly have done so, both on her own behalf and her daughter's; but they were in the midst of company, and it is difficult to carry on an altercation very long in whispers. So she veiled her displeasure with a smile, and advanced to meet her hostess, who was tripping across the lawn to welcome them.

Pimpernel Bank was not a bank of any kind, but a private house of some pretension a few miles from London. There were no pimpernels growing on its well-kept borders. That modest pink-eyed flower, which by its opening and closing serves the observant rustic as a weather-glass, would not have been tolerated among the gayer and more costly plants with which the "Bank was furnished; but that was no reason why its name should not be used. "The Limes" opposite had not a lime about it. "Deepdale," a little farther on, was situated on an eminence; and "Abbey Field" had nothing of an abbey belonging to it, unless it might be the three windows of carpenter's Gothic, through which its owner looked out upon the high road. There is no accounting for names, especially in the matter of villas.

The owner of Pimpernel Bank was a stockbroker, and, to judge by the style of his home. and its surroundings, must have been doing pretty well in his profession. He had "a good nose," people said, by the help of which he had been enabled to make one or two capital hits, and had gained for himself a reputation. He had a large and profitable business connection, and had suc