"Have you a dress for this ball,—this senseless rout that is coming off?" says Mr. Amherst, without looking at her.
"Yes, grandpapa." In a tone a degree harder.
"You are my granddaughter. I desire to see you dressed as such. Is"—with an effort—"your gown a handsome one?"
"Well, that greatly depends upon taste," returns Molly, who, though angry, finds a grim amusement in watching the flounderings of this tactless old person. "If we are to believe that beauty unadorned is adorned the most, I may certainly flatter myself I shall be the best dressed woman in the room. But there may be some who will not call white muslin 'handsome.'"
"White muslin up to sixteen is very charming," Mr. Amherst says, in a slow tone of a connoisseur in such matters, "but not beyond. And you are, I think——"
"Nineteen."
"Quite so. Then in your case I should condemn the muslin. You will permit me to give you a dress, Eleanor, more in accordance with your age and position."
"Thank you very much, grandpapa," says Molly, with a little ominous gleam in her blue eyes. "You are too good. I am deeply sensible of all your kindness, but I really cannot see how my position has altered of late. As you have just discovered, I am now nineteen, and for so many years I have managed to look extremely well in white muslin."
As she finishes her modest speech she feels she has gone too far. She has been almost impertinent, considering his age and relationship to her; nay, more, she has been ungenerous.
Her small taunt has gone home. Mr. Amherst rises from his chair; the dull red of old age comes painfully into his withered cheeks as he stands gazing at her, slight, erect, with her proud little head upheld so haughtily.