Two evenings later she flung open her wardrobe, dismissed the maid Lady Forrest had sent to help her dress, and threw every gown she possessed on the bed. Which should it be? There was a great deal in dress, these Englishwomen told her. A becoming gown had been known to decide the fate of a kingdom. What about that pretty green thing that ’Steban had bought for her in Boston? The lace frills were certainly becoming. She tried it on, then dashed it on a chair. Fie! the trying thing! She looked positively hideous. Well, there was a dove-coloured silk open at the throat. It would be a crime to put on a high-necked dress in this household; though it was a fortunate thing that Mamma Danvers could not see her. She would be shocked to death.
In half an hour she was red in the face, her teeth were worrying her under lip, and she was half-crying from vexation. Nothing suited her, nothing fitted. Everything was trying to her complexion, rasping to her nerves.
The maid knocked at her door, and she irritably called, “Come in.”
“I would better assist you, ma’am,” the newcomer observed, civilly; “dinner will be served in ten minutes. Lady Forrest has long since gone down.”
“Put on that,” said Nina, desperately, and she indicated a sprigged and washed white muslin frock.
“That, ma’am?” said the woman, in faint surprise.
“Yes,” said the girl, choking back a sigh. “It is a Rubicon Meadows frock,—the place I come from. My husband is coming. I think he would like to see me in it.”
“Would you just try this, ma’am, first,” and the woman laid her hand on a white silk production of an American dressmaker’s skill.
“That! it is too plain and it makes me tall and hideous and like a ghost!” exclaimed the girl.
“Will you just try it?” coaxed the woman. “Your colour is rising.”