"Too wonderful," she wrote, "pray bring him yourself to my little
garden-party on Friday. There will be only a few. Let me know if he
wants a quiet room ready for him."

All this had taken time, and she had but scribbled a dozen postcards to
friends bidding them come to her garden party on Friday, when tea was
announced. These invitations had the mystic word "Hightum" written at
the bottom left hand corner, which conveyed to the enlightened recipient
what sort of party it was to be, and denoted the standard of dress. For
one of Lucia's quaint ideas was to divide dresses into three classes,
"Hightum," "Tightum" and "Scrub." "Hightum" was your very best dress,
the smartest and newest of all, and when "Hightum" was written on a
card of invitation, it implied that the party was a very resplendent
one. "Tightum" similarly indicated a moderately smart party, "Scrub"
carried its own significance on the surface. These terms applied to
men's dress as well and as regards evening parties: a dinner party
"Hightum" would indicate a white tie and a tail coat; a dinner party
"Tightum" a black tie and a short coat, and a dinner "Scrub" would mean
morning clothes.

With tea was announced also the advent of Georgie Pillson who was her
gentleman-in-waiting when she was at home, and her watch-dog when she
was not. In order to save subsequent disappointment, it may be at once
stated that there never has been, was, or ever would be the smallest
approach to a flirtation between them. Neither of them, she with her
forty respectable years and he with his blameless forty-five years, had
ever flirted, with anybody at all. But it was one of the polite and
pleasant fictions of Riseholme that Georgie was passionately attached
to her and that it was for her sake that he had settled in Riseholme