To my fancy, that dress was a nation sight too much. It was all in a flutter, silk heaped on silk. E. E. tried it on, and fairly waded in silk when she walked. There was neither elegance nor simplicity in it, nothing but a sickening idea of extravagance and money.
E. E. looked like a peacock, walked like a peacock, and seemed to feel like one. She took a little mite of a bonnet from a box that came just after the dress, and put it on. It was shaped like the small end of a loaf of sugar, with a pink rose and a bunch of green and blue feathers on the top, bee-hivy in height, but brigandish in shape, slightly pastoral, and a little military.
"Isn't it stylish?" says she, setting it on the top of her curls and puffs, with such an air.
"Original," says I, "but you know which is my color."
E. E. laughed till the feathers shook on her head.
"Oh!" says she, "Dempster and I are prudent. After the middle of July perhaps we may—"
"Till then," says I, "you'll sit on the fence peacock fashion."
We had more words, for E. E. is nobody's fool; but just then Cecilia came in, and I made myself scarce.