“Yes, miss,” said Barker, passing the strands of golden copper over her hands. “It is all the fashion now; but you seldom see it with so much gold in it; none of the dyes can put the light on it you’ve got; and if you buy the hair, even if it’s real hair, of the very best quality, it hasn’t the sheen on it like this.” And she stroked the thick tresses lovingly and enviously.
“I don’t think much of it,” said Esmeralda, indifferently. “Lady Wyndover’s is ever so much prettier.”
Barker coughed again.
“Yes, miss,” she said, dryly. “It’s a matter of taste.” She sighed as she looked at the dress, and Esmeralda took the opportunity to remark:
“I am having some new things made by a lady named Cerise—Lady Wyndover called her ‘madame,’ though I don’t know why—and I sha’n’t want these. You can have them, if you like. I think they’re pretty enough, but Lady Wyndover doesn’t.”
Barker accepted the complete wardrobe with, at any rate, a show of gratitude, consoling herself with the reflection that the new Cerise dresses would also come to her in due course, and then put the finishing touches to Esmeralda’s toilet.
“The dresses are certainly not quite good enough for a lady like you, miss,” she said. “But, there, it wouldn’t matter what you wore!” she added.
“You mean that I’m so—so unfashionable and countrified?” said Esmeralda, innocently.
Barker looked at her. To that knowing young person such innocence and absence of self-consciousness seemed almost uncanny and quite incredible.