whether, since Susan is dead, you might go back in her place. After all, I take the place of someone else who's not only dead but who's of a different sex as well. It wouldn't be surprising if you took Susan's place, would it?”

"Well, no-I suppose not. I hadn't thought of it that way." "Shall we try then?"

·

"Yes yes I think I'D like to." And so it turned out. Susan was not unlike Margaret in character, though not in appearance, and dimly, through the overwhelming presence of Millie's personality, Ian thought that he could faintly detect signs of Margaret in her.

The following mornin right from the beginning it had been established that evey dressing session, no matter at what time of the day the ex- perience as Millie began, ended with Ian finally going to sleep as Millie, and waking up in the morning as himself - Margaret confirmed it.

"It was very odd to be not just a younger version of myself, but to be someone else altoge- ther, with her thoughts and feek- ings in place of my own. We always used to laugh at her though not to her face and I'm sorry now that we did for I discovered last night just how unhappy it made her.

""

After the question of what would happen to Margaret in pre- war sessions had been satis- factorily answered, Ian's dressing continued with Millie ranging far and wide through her life from the very first outfit in the storeroom, which she'd worn at her coming-out ball when she was seventeen, to the last, which she'd worn at a din- ner given in her honour to mark her eightieth birthday, only a few months before her death.

In some ways Ian was of a methodical turn of mind and very early in his career as Great- Aunt Millie he'd made a list of all the outfits in the storeroom what they were, when they'd been worn, and so on-and then

noted by each the date on which he'd been dressed in it by Margaret. The total came to well over the hundred she'd estimated originally but one day, over four years from his first experience, he counted up and found that there were only half a dozen that he'd noy yet

worn.

"Only about another three months, Margaret, and then we'll have gone through the complete collection. I wonder what'll happen then do you think we'll start again at the beginning?"

"I don't know, Mr. Ian. Perhaps she'll only be allowed to to go through everything once and then she'll have to stop.'

""

"Oh, I do hope not! I don't know what I'll do if she does. I've been so used to being her and dressing in those marvellous clothes that I can't visualise a life without it. You can have no idea what it means to me to be attractive and beautifully dressed and yes, I will say it to be a woman and not a man. As a real woman I don't suppose you look on it in the same way that I do, but I swear that I'd give anything at all to be assured of continuing this wonderful experience. When you suggested, that day four years ago, that I should try on the New Look dress you opened a door into a world of storybook happiness for me. I couldn't survive being locked out of it now."

"Well, well, we'll have to wait and see what happens. Perhaps, if Miss Millie isn't allowed to come back any more you could carry on where she left off buy some new outfits which you could wear on very special occasions here at home your birthday and Christmas and other special days. And, of course, you'll be able to dress in all the things in the storeroom again, except that it'll help you all I can for these four years have been marvellous for me, too. But I'm sure Miss Millie will tell you what to do when the time comes."

37

As the weeks passed it became apparent that the final outfit in the collection was to be Millie's 1914 wedding dress. Ian had long looked for- ward to wearing it for it seemed to him that to be a bride was to reach the pinnacle of woman- hood an experience which could only be exceeded by motherhood, and this had been denied to Millie and this last adventure in her place would be also a pinnacle for him.

At long last the morning dawned. On that Saturday lan woke with two messages from Millie in his mind. One was a date, August 3, 1914 and the other was the phrase 'The end is the beginning.' He wasn't sure just what that meant but it sounded hopeful. Metaphori- cally he kept his fingers crossed.

It was early evening when Margaret started to prepare him for the rigours of a pre-world war one woman's wedding day. Whatever a man of the day might have had to put up with in the way of uncomfortable new clothes, starched collars and tight boots it was nothing to what his bride had to endure. Although by 1914 fashion had become much modified for day wear from the Victorian and Turn of the Century ideals, evening clothes and these gov- ened the shape and style of wedding dresses were still some years behind in changing. So, over his underpants Ian had to get into a silk chemise and then, very daringly, silk drawers. White openwork stock- ings came to just over his knees where Margaret gartered them with white satin ribbons. He had been corsetted often under many of the dresses he had worn before, but never so sever- ely as he was to be now. To him the long gleaming white stays were, even before they were laced, unpleasantly tight on his body and the boning felt so stiff that he wondered whether he could possibly put up with it. In fact, by the time