She unfolded a rose-colored muslin, with little raised embroidered spots, and threw it over the bed.
"Where will you wear that, up here?" asked Frank, in pure bewilderment.
"Why, I wear it to church, with my white Swiss mantle," answered Laura. "Or taking tea, or anything. I've a black silk visite for cool days. That looks nice with it. And see here,—I've a pink sunshade. They don't have them much yet, even in New York. Mr. Pemberton Oferr brought these home from Paris, for Gerry and Alice, and me. Gerry's is blue. See! it tips back." And Laura set the dashy little thing with its head on one side, and held it up coquettishly.
"They used them in carriages in Paris, he said, and in St. Petersburg, driving out on the Nevskoi Prospekt."
"But where are your common things?"
"Down at the bottom; I haven't come to them. They were put in first, because they would bear squeezing. I've two French calicoes, with pattern trimmings; and a lilac jaconet, with ruffles, open down the front."
Laura wore long dresses now; and open wrappers were the height of the style.
Laura astonished Homesworth the first Sunday of this visit, with her rose-colored toilet. Bonnet of shirred pink silk with moss rosebuds and a little pink lace veil; the pink muslin, full-skirted over two starched petticoats; even her pink belt had gay little borders of tiny buds and leaves, and her fan had a pink tassel.
"They're the things I wear; why shouldn't I?" she said to Frank's remonstrance.
"But up here!" said Frank. "It would seem nicer to wear something—stiller."