“But I shall never dare to wear it, Gorringe—everybody will know it.”
“Of course they will, sir!” said the tailor proudly, and glancing towards his window with that half-smile an artist wears when his successful picture is on view, “that’s a coat such as is not seen in Castor every day. Look at the collar! There’s two days’ hard stitching in that collar, sir!”
“I have looked at the collar,” said Thickens hastily, “and I must have it home.”
Gorringe gave way, and the coat went home; but he felt, as he said to his wife, as if he had been robbed, for that coat would have won the hearts of half the farmers round.
At the doctor’s cottage Mrs Luttrell was in one constant whirl of excitement, with four clever seamstresses at work, for at King’s Castor a bride’s trousseau was called by a much simpler name, and provided throughout at home, along with the house-linen, which in those days meant linen of the finest and coolest, and it was absolutely necessary that every article that could be stitched should be stitched with rows of the finest stitches, carefully put in.
“You’re about worrying yourself into a fever, my dear,” said the doctor smiling, “and I can’t afford such patients as you. Where can I have this bunch of radish-seed hung up to dry? Give it to Thisbe to hang in the kitchen.”
“Now, my dear Joseph, how can you be so unreasonable!” cried Mrs Luttrell, half whimpering. “Radish-seed at a time like this! Thisbe is re-covering the pots of jam.”
“What jam? What for?”
“For Millicent. You don’t suppose I’m going to let her begin housekeeping without a pot of jam in the storeroom!”
“Thank goodness I’ve only one child!” said the doctor with a half-amused, half-vexed countenance.