She was allowed cotton frocks for very warm weather, and she had pretty gowns for evening wear; but her usual attire was cloth or linsey woolsey, made by the local tailor.

Sometimes Maulevrier ordered her a gown or a coat from his own man in Conduit Street, and then she felt herself smart and fashionable.
And even the local tailor contrived to make her gowns prettily, having a great appreciation of her straight willowy figure, and deeming it a privilege to work for her, so that hitherto Mary had felt very well content with her cloth and linsey.

But now that John Hammond so obviously admired Lesbia's delicate raiment, poor Mary began to think her woollen gowns odious.
After breakfast Mary and Maulevrier went straight off to the kennels.
His lordship had numerous instructions to give on this last day, and his lieutenant had to receive and register his orders.

Lesbia went to the garden with her book and with Fraeulein--the inevitable Fraeulein as Hammond thought her--in close attendance.
It was a lovely morning, sultry, summer-like, albeit September had just begun.

The tennis lawn, which had been levelled on one side of the house, was surrounded on three sides by shrubberies planted forty years ago, in the beginning of Lady Maulevrier's widowhood.