"How much?" I asked.
"How much does it cost? Why it is the countryman's question over again, Daisy. Lace is all sorts of prices. But the lace you wear is, I judge, somewhere about three and five, and one of your dresses ten, dollars a yard. That is pretty rich lace for a young lady of your years to wear."
I never wore it, I must explain, unless in small quantity, except on state occasions when my mother dressed me as part of herself.
"No, I am wrong," my aunt added, presently; "that dress I am thinking of is richer than that; the lace on that robe was never bought for ten dollars, or fifteen either. What do you want to know about it for, Daisy?"
I mused a great deal. Three and five, and ten, and fifteen dollars a yard, on lace trimmings for me—and no tea, no cups and saucers, no soft bed, no gardens and flowers, for many who were near me. I began to fill the meshes of my lace with responsibilities too heavy for the delicate fabric to bear. Nobody liked the looks of it better than I did. I always had a fancy for lace, though not for feathers; its rich, delicate, soft falls, to my notion, suited my mother's form and style better than anything else, and suited me. My taste found no fault. But now that so much good was wrought into its slight web, and so much silver lay hidden in every embroidered flower, the thing was changed. Graceful, and becoming, and elegant, more than any other
adornment; what then? My mother and father had a great deal of money, too, to spare; enough, I thought, for lace and for the above tea and sugar, too; what then? And what if not enough? I pondered till my Aunt Gary broke out upon me, that I would grow a wizened old woman if I sat musing at that rate, and sent me to bed. It stopped my pondering for that night; but not for all the years since that night.
My preparations were quite made before my aunt got her feathers adjusted to her satisfaction; and in the bright days of autumn we went back again to Magnolia. This was a joyful journey and a glad arriving, compared to last year; and the welcome I got was something which puzzled my heart between joy and sorrow many times during the first few days.
And now Miss Pinshon's reign fairly began. I was stronger in health, accustomed to my circumstances; there was no longer any reason that the multiplication table and I should be parted. My governess was determined to make up for lost time; and the days of that winter were spent by me between the study table and fire. That is, when I think of that winter my memory finds me there. Multiplication and its correlatives were the staple of existence; and the old book room of my grandfather was the place where my harvests of learning were sown and reaped.
Somehow, I do not think the crops were heavy. I tried my best, and Miss Pinshon certainly tried her best. I went through and over immense fields of figures; but I fancy the soil did not suit the growth. I know the fruits were not satisfactory to myself, and, indeed, were not fruits at all, to my sense of them; but rather dry husks and hard nut shells, with the most tasteless of small kernels inside. Yet Miss Pinshon did not seem unsatisfied; and, indeed, occasionally remarked that she believed
I meant to be a good child. Perhaps that was something out of my governess's former experience; for it was the only style of commendation I ever knew her indulge in, and I always took it as a compliment.