"Yes," he said. "I'll go along and take care of you, lest you get drawn into something else you don't like."
"But, dear uncle Orrin, there is another difficulty it is to be a large party, and I have not a dress exactly fit."
"What have you got?" said he, with a comic kind of fierceness.
"I have silks, but they are none of them proper for this occasion they are ever so little old-fashioned."
"What do you want?"
"Nothing, Sir," said Fleda; "for I don't want to go."
"You mend a pair of stockings to put on," said he, nodding at her, "and I'll see to the rest."
"Apparently you place great importance in stockings," said
Fleda, laughing, "for you always mention them first. But,
please don't get anything for me, uncle Orrin please don't!
I have plenty for common occasions, and I don't care to go to
Mrs. Thorn's."
"I don't care either," said the doctor, working himself into his great coat. "By the by, do you want to invoke the aid of St. Crispin?"
He went off, and Fleda did not know whether to cry or to laugh at the vigorous way in which he trod through the hall, and slammed the front door after him. Her spirits just kept the medium, and did neither. But they were in the same doubtful mood still an hour after, when he came back with a paper parcel he had brought home under his arm, and unrolled a fine embroidered muslin; her eyes were very unsteady in carrying their brief messages of thankfulness, as if they feared saying too much. The doctor, however, was in the mood for doing, not talking, by looks or otherwise. Mrs. Pritchard was called into consultation, and with great pride and delight engaged to have the dress and all things else in due order by the following night; her eyes saying all manner of gratulatory things as they went from the muslin to Fleda, and from Fleda to Dr. Gregory.