more so to be routed by an innocent-looking young person, whose position was questionable, and who actually owed her vague shadow of respectability to her distant but august relative, the Lady Augusta Decima Crewe Bilberry, wife of the Rev. Marmaduke Sholto Bilberry, and mother of the plenteous crop of young Bilberrys, to whom little Miss Crewe was music teacher and morning governess.
So it was that Mollie's joke about the tucks and white muslin gained additional point from the family recollection of past experiences.
“But,” said Dolly, when the laugh had subsided, “it won't do to talk nonsense all day. Here 's where we stand, you know. Coffee and conversation on Friday night on one side, and nothing but my draggled old green tarlatan on the other, and it's Tuesday now.”
“And the family impecuniosity being a fact well established in the family mind,” began Phil, with composure.
“But that 's nonsense,” interrupted Aimée. “And, as Dolly says, nonsense won't do now. But,” with a quaint sigh, “we always do talk nonsense.”
But here a slight diversion was created. Mrs. Phil jumped up, with an exclamation of delight, and, dropping Tod on to Mollie's lap, disappeared through the open door.
“I will be back in a minute,” she called back to them, as she ran up-stairs. “I have just thought of something.”
“Girls,” said Mollie, “it's her white merino.”
And so it was. In a few minutes she reappeared with it,—a heap of soft white folds in her arms, and a yard or so of the train dragging after her upon the carpet,—the one presentable relic of a once inconsistently elaborate bridal trousseau, at present in a rather tumbled and rolled-up condition, but still white and soft and thick, and open to unlimited improvement.
“I had forgotten all about it,” she said, triumphantly. “I have never needed it at all, and I knew I never should when I bought it, but it looked so nice when I saw it that I could n't help buying it. I once thought of cutting it up into things for Tod; but it seems to me, Dolly, it 's what you want exactly, and Tod can trust to Providence,—things always come somehow.”
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