“It is a discreet sort of garment,” said Dolly, by way of comment; “and it is 'suitable to our social position.' Do you remember when Lady Augusta said that about my black alpaca, girls? Pleasant little observation, was n't it? 'Toinette, I trust hair-pins are not injurious to infantile digestive organs. If they are, perhaps it would be as well to convince Tod that such is the case. What is the matter, Mollie?”
Mollie, leaning upon the dressing-table in her favorite attitude, was looking rather discontented. She was looking very pretty, also, it might be said. Her sleepy, warm brown eyes, being upraised to Dolly, showed larger and warmer and browner than usual; the heavy brown locks, tumbling down over her shoulders, caught a sort of brownish, coppery shade in the flare of gas-light; there was a flush on her soft cheeks, and her ripe lips were curved in a lovely dissatisfaction. Hence Dolly's remark.
“I wish I was going,” said the child.
Dolly's eyes flew open wide, in a very sublimity of astonishment.
“Wish you were going?” she echoed. “To the Bilberrys'?”
Mollie nodded.
“Yes, even there. I want to go somewhere. I think I should enjoy myself a little anywhere. I should like to see the people, and hear them talk, and find out what they do, and wear an evening dress.”
Dolly gazed at her in mingled pity and bewilderment.
“Mollie,” she said, “you are very innocent; and I always knew you were very innocent; but I did not know you were as innocent as this,—so utterly free from human guile that you could imagine pleasure in a Bilberry rejoicing. And I believe,” still regarding her with that questioning pity, “—I believe you really could. I must keep an eye on you, Mollie. You are too unsophisticated to be out of danger.”
It was characteristic of her good-natured sympathy for the girl that it should occur to her the next minute that perhaps it might please her to see herself donned even in such modest finery as the white merino. She understood her simple longings after unattainable glories so thoroughly, and she was so ready to amuse her to the best of her ability. So she suggested it.