'Oh, it was all quite good-natured.'
'You mean you weren't frightened?'
'There's nothing to be frightened at.' She was actually saying it in a soothing, 'motherly' sort of way, calculated to steady the lady's nerves—reassuring the rescuer.
Vida's eye fell on the festoon of braid falling from the dark cloth skirt.
'Well, the polite attentions of your friends seem to have rather damaged your gown.'
Over a big leather portfolio that she held clasped in her arms, Ernestine, too, looked down at the torn frock.
'That foolish trimming—it's always getting stepped on.'
Miss Levering's search had produced a pin.
'No; I'll just pull it off.'