At Mrs Ffolliot's suggestion it had already been arranged that a blouse instead of a flannel petticoat should this year be given to the younger women. The other ladies had fallen in graciously with the idea (they were inclined to enthuse over the "sweet young bride"), and according to custom one Miss Tibbits, a spinster of large leisure and masterful ways, had undertaken to procure the necessary material. For years donors and recipients alike had meekly suffered her domination. She chose the material, settled what garments should be made and in what style, and who should receive them when made.
On the afternoon in question Miss Tibbits duly descended from her brougham, bearing a parcel containing the material for the blouses which Mrs Grantly volunteered to cut out. Miss Tibbits undid the parcel and displayed the contents to the nine ladies assembled round the dining-room table.
Mrs Grantly was seen to regard it with marked disapproval, and hers was an expressive countenance.
"May I ask," she began in the honeyed, "society" tone that in her own family was recognised as the sure precursor of battle, "why the poor should be dressed in dusters?"
The eight ladies concentrated their gaze upon the roll of material which certainly did bear a strong resemblance to the bundles offered by drapers at sale times as "strong, useful, and much reduced."
"It is the usual thing," Miss Tibbits replied shortly, "we have to consider utility, not ornament."
Mrs Grantly stretched across the table, swiftly seized the material, gathered it up under her chin, and with a dramatic gesture stood up so that it fell draped about her.
"Look at me!" she exclaimed. "If I had to wear clothes made of stuff like this, I should go straight to the Devil!"
And at that very moment, just as she proclaimed in a loud voice the downward path she would tread if clad in the material Miss Tibbits had selected, the door was opened, and Mr Molyneux was announced.
The ladies gasped (except Marjory Ffolliot, who had dissolved into helpless laughter at the sight of her large and portly parent draped in yards of double-width red and brown check), but Mrs Grantly was no whit abashed.