“Yes, yes,” I said warmly, for it seemed to me that a new vista of wonderful bliss was opening out before me. “Of course they are. We could go to—to Wallis’s shop at Holborn Viaduct. I have been there sometimes with the boys, and I’ve seen all sorts of things in the windows.”
“Then go upstairs, put on your hat and jacket immediately, and I’ll take you there. You shall not go shabby to Miss Grace Donnithorne’s.”
Wonder of wonders! I rushed up to my room; I put on my short, very much worn little jacket, and slipped my hat on my head, thrust my hands into my woollen gloves, and, lo! I was ready. I flew down again to father. He looked hard at me.
“But, after all, you are quite well covered,” he said. It had certainly never before dawned upon his mind that a woman wanted to be more than, as he expressed it, covered.
“But, father,” I said, “you can be shabbily covered and prettily covered. That makes all the difference; doesn’t it, father?”
“I don’t know, child; I don’t know. When I read in the great works of Sophocles—”
He wandered off into a learned dissertation. I was accustomed to these wanderings of his, and often had to pull him back.
“I’m ready,” I said, “if you are.”
“Then come along,” was his remark.
When the Professor got out of doors he walked very fast indeed. He walked at such a fearful pace that I had nearly to run to keep up with him. But at last we found ourselves at Wallis’s. There my father became extremely masterful. He said to the shopman who came to meet him, “I want new garments for this young lady. Show me some, please—some that will fit—those that are ready-made.”