Mr. Kendal turned round, looked at the time-piece, and marched off.
‘But mamma!’ continued Sophy, driving straight at her point, ‘what do you think of consistency?’
‘Oh, mamma!’ cried Lucy, coming into the room in a flutter of white; ‘there you are in your beautiful blue! Have you really put it on for the Drurys?’
Sophy bit her lip, neither pleased at the interruption, nor at the taste.
‘Have you a graduated scale of dresses for all your friends, Lucy? asked Ulick.
‘Everybody has, I suppose,’ said Lucy.
‘Ah! then I shall know how to judge how I stand in your favour. I never knew so well what the garb of friendship meant.’
‘You must know which way her scale goes,’ said Albinia, laughing at Sophy’s evident affront at the frivolous turn the conversation had taken.
‘That needs no asking,’ quoth Ulick, ‘Unadorned, adorned the most for the nearest the hearth.’
‘That’s all conceit,’ said Lucy. ‘Maybe familiarity breeds contempt.’