"The truth is, Dave, I thought I must wait to see how much of it I had left after getting Mary rigged up for the Robinsons' dance. She goes out so often that she needs a change of evening dress."
"Did she ask for it?"
"Not directly, but she remarked that she didn't see what I wanted with a new black silk, that I had plenty of clothes, and that when she was my age she didn't think she'd bother about what she had to wear."
I sprang up from the sofa, prepared to shove Mary out of the house, neck and crop, but Belle's outburst of laughter calmed me.
"Her cheek is so great that it passes from the ridiculous to the sublime!"
"Why do you stand it, Belle? You wouldn't from anybody else."
"I can't very well go back on her at this stage, and send her about her business. She's shrewd enough to know that."
"People would laugh; that's so!"
"Besides, if she marries Axworthy, she'll be our social equal here in this town, and it must never be in her power to say that we did not treat her well."