"It's just these little things that take the edge off."
Marie's mother looked in and smiled to see her girl fingering her pretty things.
"Aren't you two nearly ready to leave the inspection and come to tea?"
"Julia doesn't like my caps, mum."
"Yes, I do," said Julia; "all I'm asking, Mrs. Amber, is, when is she going to wear them?"
Marie's mother came in and sat down and thought.
"Ah," she said, shaking her head and looking pinched about the lips, "I don't know. You modern girls buy all these extraordinary things. You ape rich women; but you'll never be able to pay the everlasting cleaners' bills for those caps."
"She'll soon give up wearing them, Mrs. Amber."
"I'm sure I shan't," Marie denied.
"When I was a girl," said Mrs. Amber, smoothing her lap reminiscently, "I remember I wanted a grand trousseau. But girls lived at home more in those days; they didn't go out typing and what not, earning money for themselves. So I couldn't buy what I wanted and my dear mother had too much sense to buy it for me. I had strong, useful things, twelve of everything, and they've lasted to this day. However, Marie thinks differently and she has earned the money to act differently, so let her be happy in her own way while she can."