“You are a good girl, you are,” said Mrs. Tozer admiringly, “and me as was frightened for a fine lady from London! But Tozer would say as it was my doing. He would say as it wasn't natural for a young creature; and, bless you, they'll all be there in their best—that Pigeon and the others, and Mrs. Tom. I just wish I could go too, to see you outshine 'em all, which you'll do if you take pains. Take a little more pains with your hair, Phœbe, mount it up a bit higher, and if you want anything like a bit of lace or a brooch or that, just you come to me. I should like Mrs. Tom to see you with that brooch as she's always wanting for Minnie. Now why should I give my brooch to Minnie? I don't see no reason for it, for my part.”
“Certainly not, grandmamma,” said Phœbe, “you must wear your brooches yourself, that is what I like a great deal better than giving them either to Minnie or me.”
“Ah, but there ain't a many like you, my sweet,” cried the old woman, wiping her eyes. “You're my Phœbe's own daughter, but you're a touch above her, my darling, and us too, that's what you are. Run now and dress, or I don't know what Tozer will say to me. He's set his heart on showing you off to-night.”
Thus adjured, Phœbe went away reluctantly. It is unnecessary to say that her disinterestedness about her grandmother's brooch was not perhaps so noble as it appeared on the outside. The article in question was a kind of small warming-pan in a very fine solid gold mount, set with large pink topazes, and enclosing little wavy curls of hair, one from the head of each young Tozer of the last generation. It was a piece of jewelry very well known in Carlingford, and the panic which rose in Phœbe's bosom when it was offered for her own personal adornment is more easily imagined than described. She went upstairs feeling that she had escaped, and took out a black silk dress at which she looked lovingly.
“But grandmamma would think it was no better than this,” she said to herself, and after much searchings of heart she chose a costume of Venetian blue, one soft tint dying into another like the lustre on a piece of old glass, which in her own opinion was a great deal too good for the occasion. “Some one will tread on it to a certainty, and the colours don't show in candle-light; but I must try to please grandmamma,” she said heroically. When it was put on with puffings of lace such as Mrs. Tozer had never seen, and was entirely ignorant of the value of, at the throat and sleeves, Phœbe wrapt a shawl round her in something of the same dim gorgeous hue, covered with embroidery, an Indian rarity which somebody had bestowed upon Mrs. Beecham, and which no one had used or thought of till Phœbe's artistic eye fell upon it. It was a great deal too fine for Carlingford. An opera-cloak bought in Oxford Street for a pound or two would have much more impressed the assembly to which Phœbe was bound. Mrs. Tozer inspected her when she went downstairs, with awe, yet dissatisfaction.
“I dare say as it's all very fine, and it ain't like other folks, anybody can see; but I'd dress you different, my dear, if you was in my hands,” said the old woman, walking round and round her. As for Tozer, he too showed less admiration than if he had known better.
“I got a fly, thinking as you'd have some fallal or other on you; but, bless my heart, you could have walked in that gown,” he said. So that Phœbe's toilette, which would have been mightily admired in a London drawing-room, could not be said to be a success. She was somewhat discouraged by this, notwithstanding that she knew so very much better; and accordingly set out in the fly with her grandfather in his best coat, feeling, generally, in a depressed condition.
“It is clear that I must take to the pinks and blues to please them,” she said to herself with a sigh. She could triumph over the slight that might be shown to herself in consequence of her relations; but those sneers at her dress went to Phœbe's heart.
The Music Hall was full of a miscellaneous crowd when Phœbe, following her grandfather, went in; and the seats allotted to these important people were on the platform, where, at least, Tozer's unacknowledged object of showing her off could be amply gratified. This arrangement did not, on the whole, displease Phœbe. Since she must be exhibited, it seemed better, on the whole, to be exhibited there, than in a less distinguished place; and all the speakers knew her, which was something. She sat down with some complaisance, and let her Indian scarf droop from her shoulders, and her pretty dress show itself.
“I declare if that isn't Phœbe, junior,” said Mrs. Tom audibly, in the middle of the hall, “making a show of herself; but, Lord bless us, for all their grandeur, how she do dress, to be sure. A bit of a rag of an old shawl, and a hat on! the same as she wears every day. I've got more respect for them as comes to instruct us than that.”