The dressing of Ethelberta for the dinner-party was an undertaking into
which Picotee threw her whole skill as tirewoman. Her energies were
brisker that day than they had been at any time since the Julians first
made preparations for departure from town; for a letter had come to her
from Faith, telling of their arrival at the old cathedral city, which was
found to suit their inclinations and habits infinitely better than
London; and that she would like Picotee to visit them there some day.
Picotee felt, and so probably felt the writer of the letter, that such a
visit would not be very practicable just now; but it was a pleasant idea,
and for fastening dreams upon was better than nothing.

Such musings were encouraged also by Ethelberta's remarks as the dressing
went on.

'We will have a change soon,' she said; 'we will go out of town for a few
days. It will do good in many ways. I am getting so alarmed about the
health of the children; their faces are becoming so white and thin and
pinched that an old acquaintance would hardly know them; and they were so
plump when they came. You are looking as pale as a ghost, and I daresay
I am too. A week or two at Knollsea will see us right.'

'O, how charming!' said Picotee gladly.

Knollsea was a village on the coast, not very far from Melchester, the
new home of Christopher; not very far, that is to say, in the eye of a
sweetheart; but seeing that there was, as the crow flies, a stretch of
thirty-five miles between the two places, and that more than one-third
the distance was without a railway, an elderly gentleman might have
considered their situations somewhat remote from each other.