“I almost wish you were,” he returned, “though that would make it all the harder to part with you for the benefit of those young men from the West. Good-by now for the present, and I wish you success with your shopping. Give my love to your sister, and tell her I hope the silk and lace will be suited to her taste.”
“O Dorothy, isn’t he kind? whose uncles are better than ours?” exclaimed Ethel as they walked up the street.
“Who, indeed!” said Dorothy. “Uncle George has always been good as gold to me. O Ethel, what perfectly lovely silk and lace he has given us! I shall be surprised if Blanche does not go almost wild with delight when she sees them.”
“Yes, they seem too beautiful and costly for girls so poor as we are. Yet I can’t help feeling greatly pleased to have them. The Landreths are wealthy, as perhaps you know, and I own I did feel a little reluctant to go among them poorly dressed, especially as a bride.”
“Well, you see you won’t have to, and I am sure your uncles never meant you should; they have too much family pride for that, even if they did not love the girls and Harry also, and I am sure they do.”
“Yes, I know they do,” said Ethel, “and I esteem their fatherly affection a very great blessing; as I should even if they were not able to help us at all.”
“I do not doubt it in the least. But to change the subject—you must have a travelling dress, and I think a certain shade of gray, with a hat and feather to match, would be the very thing.”
“I agree with you,” said Ethel, “and they would be pretty for Blanche too.”
“Yes; but hers might be of a slightly different shade, as you don’t—at least I presume you don’t want to dress exactly alike and have people taking you for twins,” she concluded laughingly.
“No, not exactly, except in our wedding dresses,” returned Ethel with a smile. “But if we choose, we can have them made up a little differently; the way of putting on the lace might be different if nothing else.”