"You needn't tell me that. I'm positive they couldn't be named in the same day," says Geoffrey, enthusiastically, who never in his life saw Lady Crighton, or her neck or arms.
"No, they are not. Geoffrey, people look much better when they are beautifully dressed, don't they?"
"Well, on the principle that fine feathers make fine birds, I suppose they do," acknowledges Geoffrey, reluctantly.
At this she glances with scorn upon the quakerish and somewhat quaint gray gown in which she is clothed, and in which she is looking far sweeter than she knows, for in her face lie "love enshrined and sweet attractive grace."
"Yet, in spite of all the fine feathers, no one ever crept into my heart but my own Mona," says the young man, putting his hand beneath her chin, which is soft and rounded as a baby's, and turning her face to his. He hates to see the faint chagrin that lingers on it for a moment; for his is one of those tender natures that cannot bear to see the thing it loves endure the smallest torment.
"Some women in the great world overdo it," he goes on, "and choose things and colors utterly unsuited to their style. They are slaves to fashion. But
"'My love in her attire doth show her wit;
It doth so well become her.'"
"Ah, how you flatter!" says Mona. Nevertheless, being a woman, and the flattery being directed to herself, she takes it kindly.
"No, you must not think that. To wear anything that becomes you must be the perfection of dressing. Why wear a Tam O'Shanter hat when one looks hideous in it? And then too much study spoils effect: you know what Herrick says:—
"'A careless shoe-string in whose tie
I see a wild civility,
Does more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.'"