Mr. Blackader’s solemnity disappeared into something remarkably like a grin. “Well, do you know, ma’am, I think if you was to let me settle it all for you it would be quicker done?” he suggested apologetically.

So it was arranged. Mr. Blackader hurried away to engage a cook, and Miss Taverner walked out to take a peep at London.

She turned into Piccadilly, and knew herself to be in the heart of the fashionable quarter. There was so much to see, so much to wonder at! She had not believed so many modish people to exist, while as for the carriages, she had never seen any so elegant. The shops, the buildings were all delightful. There was the famous Hatchard’s, with its bow windows filled with all the newest publications. She could almost fancy that the gentleman coming out of the shop was the great Mr. Scott himself, or perhaps, if the author of the Lady of the Lake was in Scotland (which was sadly probable), it might be Mr. Rogers, whose Pleasures of Memory had beguiled so many leisure moments.

She went into the shop, and came out again after an enchanting half-hour spent in turning over any number of books, with a copy of Mr. Southey’s latest poem, the Curse of Kehama, under her arm.

When she returned to Grillon’s her chaperon had arrived, and was awaiting her. Miss Taverner entered in upon her in an impetuous fashion, and cried out: “Oh, ma’am, only to think of Hatchard’s at our very door! To be able to purchase any book in the world there, as I am sure one may!”

“Lord, my dear!” said Mrs. Scattergood, in some dismay. “Never say you are bookish! Poems! Oh well, there may be no harm in that, one must be able to talk of the latest poems if they happen to become the rage. Marmion! I liked that excessively, I remember, though it was too long for me to finish. They say this young man who had been doing such odd things abroad is becoming the fashion, but I don’t know. He was excessively rude to poor Lord Carlisle in that horrid poem of his. I cannot like him for it, besides that someone or other was telling me there is bad blood in all the Byrons. But, of course, if he is to be the fashion one must keep an eye on him. Let me warn you, my love, never be behind the times!”

It was the first of many pieces of worldly wisdom. Miss Taverner, led from warehouse to warehouse, from milliner to bootmaker, had others instilled into her head. She learned that no lady would be seen driving or walking down St. James’s Street; that every lady must be sure of being seen promenading in Hyde Park between the hours of five and six. She must not dare to dance the waltz until she had been approved by the Patronesses of Almack’s; she must not want to be wearing warm pelisses or shawls: the lightest of wraps must suffice her in all weathers; she need extend only the barest civility towards such an one; she must be conciliating to such another. And above all, most important, most vital, she must move heaven and earth to earn Mr. Brummell’s approval.

“If Mr. Brummell should not think you the thing you are lost!” said Mrs. Scattergood impressively. “Nothing could save you from social ruin, take my word for it. He has but to lift his eyebrow at you. and the whole world will know that he finds nothing to admire in you.”

Miss Taverner’s antagonism was instantly aroused. “I do not care that for Mr. Brummell!” she said.

Mrs. Scattergood gave a faint scream, and implored her to be careful.

Miss Taverner, however, was heartily tired of the sound of the dandy’s name. Mr. Brummell had invented the starched neckcloth; Mr. Brummell had started the fashion of white tops to riding-boots; Mr. Brummell had laid it down that no gentleman would be seen driving in a hackney carriage; Mr. Brummell had his own sedan chair, lined and cushioned with white satin; Mr. Brummell had abandoned a military career because his regiment had been ordered to Manchester; Mr. Brummell had decreed that none of the Bow-window set at White’s would acknowledge salutations from acquaintances in the street if they were seated in the club-window. And Mr. Brummell, said Mrs. Scattergood, would give her one of his stinging set-downs if she offended his notions of propriety.

“Will he?” said Miss Taverner, a martial light in her eye. “Will he indeed?”

She was annoyed to find her brother inclined to be impressed by the shadow of this uncrowned king of fashion. Peregrine went to be measured for some suits of clothes at Weston’s, escorted by Mr. Fitzjohn, and when he debated over two rolls of cloth, unable to decide between them, the tailor coughed, and said helpfully: “The Prince Regent, sir, prefers superfine, and Mr. Brummell the Bath coating, but it is immaterial which you choose: you must be right. Suppose, sir, we say the Bath coating?—I think Mr. Brummell has a trifle the preference.”

Peregrine’s days during the first week were quite as full as his sister’s. His friend, Mr. Fitzjohn, took him thoroughly in hand. When he was not being fitted for boots at Hoby’s, or hats at Lock’s, he was choosing fobs in Wells Street, or riding off to Long Acre to look at a tilbury, or knowingly inspecting carriage-horses at Tattersall’s.

The house in Brook Street, somewhat to Miss Taverner’s annoyance, proved to be admirable in every respect, the saloons handsome, and the furnishings just what she liked. She was installed there within three days of seeing Mr. Blackader, and a number of her new gowns having been delivered in neat bandboxes, her hair having been fashionably cut, and her maid taught to dress it in several approved classical styles, Mrs. Scattergood declared her to be ready to receive morning callers.

The first of these were her uncle, the Admiral, and his son, Mr. Bernard Taverner. They came at an awkward moment, Peregrine, who had spent the great part of the morning in a brocade dressing-gown, while the barber and a breeches-maker waited on him, being at the moment engaged in trying to arrange his starched neckcloth.

His sister, who had walked unceremoniously into his room to demand his escort to Colburn’s Lending Library, was an interested and rather scornful spectator. “What nonsense it is, Perry!” she exclaimed, as with an exasperated oath he threw away his fourth crushed and mangled cravat. “That is the fourth you have spoiled! If only you would have them made more narrow!”

Peregrine, his face and head quite obscured by his turned-up shirt collar, said testily: “Women never understand these things. Fitz says it must be a foot high. As for four spoiled, pooh, that’s nothing! Fitz says Brummell has sometimes ruined as many as a score. Now try it again, John! Fold my collar down first, you fool!”

Someone knocked on the door. Peregrine, with a neckcloth a foot wide round his neck, and his chin to the ceiling, shouted: “Come in!” and in doing so produced a crease in the neckcloth which he felt could hardly have been bettered by the Beau himself.

The footman entered, and announced the arrival of Admiral and Mr. Taverner. Peregrine was too much engaged in making further creases by the simple expedient of gradually lowering his jaw, to pay any heed, but Judith jumped up at once. “Oh, Perry, do make haste! It is our cousin! Beg the Admiral to wait, Perkins. We will come directly. Is Mrs Scattergood downstairs? Oh then, she will see to it all! Perry, will you never have done?”

The cravat had by this time been reduced to more normal proportions. Peregrine studied it anxiously in the mirror, tried with a cautious finger to perfect one of the creases, and announced gloomily that it would have to do. It was still too high to permit of his turning his head more than an inch or two to either side, but this he assured Judith was nothing at all out of the way.

The next business was to get him into his new coat, an elegant blue creation made of the prescribed Bath coating, with long tails, and silver buttons. It fitted him so exactly that the services of the footman had to be engaged to assist in inserting him into it. It seemed at one time as though not even the united efforts of two able-bodied men could succeed in this, but after a grim struggle it was done, and Peregrine, panting slightly from his exertions, turned to his sister and proudly asked her how he looked.

There was a laugh in her eye, but she assured him he was quite the thing. In any other man she would have ruthlessly condemned so absurdly waisted a coat, so monstrous a cravat, such skin-tight pantaloons, but Peregrine was very much her darling, and must be allowed to dress himself up in any dandified way he pleased. She did indeed suggest that his golden locks were in considerable disorder, but upon being informed that this was intentional, and had taken him half an hour to achieve, she said no more, but took his arm and went down with him to the saloon upon the first floor.

Here they found Mrs. Scattergood seated on a confidante beside a stout flushed-looking gentleman with grizzled hair, in whom Miss Taverner had no difficulty in recognizing her late father’s brother. Mr. Bernard Taverner occupied a chair opposite to them, but upon the door opening to admit his cousins, he immediately got up, and made his bow. There was a certain warmth in his smile; his look seemed to approve, even to admire. Judith could only be glad that she had chosen that morning to put on the jonquil muslin dress with the lace trimming, and the new kid shoes of celestial blue.

The Admiral had got up ponderously from the confidante, and now came forward with his hand held out and a look of decided relish upon his florid countenance. “So!” he said. “My little niece! Well, my dear! Well!”

She had a moment’s fear that he was going to kiss her, a circumstance she could not look forward to with any equanimity, since he smelled strongly of spirits. She put out her hand in a decided way, and after a moment’s hesitation he took it, and held it between both of his. “So you are poor John’s daughter!” he said with a somewhat gusty sigh. “Ah, that was a sad business! I was never more shocked in my life.”