CHAPTER XXVII.
MATILDA--BALL DRESSES AND THE BALL--GORES--MISS LINING--THE 'PARISHIONER'S PENNYWORTH.' The Bullers came home again.

Colonel St.Quentin had retired, and when Major Buller got the regiment, he also left the army and settled in a pleasant neighbourhood in the south of England.

As soon as Aunt Theresa was fairly established in her new house she sent for Eleanor and me.
There was no idea of my remaining permanently.

It was only a visit.
The Major (but he was a colonel now) and his wife were very little changed.

The girls, of course, had altered greatly, and so had I.
Matilda was a fashionably-dressed young lady, with a slightly frail appearance at times, as if Nature were still revenging the old mismanagement and neglect.
It did not need Aunt Theresa to tell us that she was her father's favourite daughter.