"To see what the fashions are."
"And what then?"
"To follow them, of course."
"Mary, is it possible you are so weak? I thought better of my sister."
"Explain yourself, Mr. Censor," replied Mary with an arch look, and a manner perfectly self-possessed.
"There is nothing I despise so much as a heartless woman of fashion."
"Such an individual is certainly, not much to be admired, Henry. But there is a vast difference you must recollect, between a lady who regards the prevailing mode of dress and a heartless woman, be she attired in the latest style, or in the costume of the times of good queen Bess. A fashionably dressed woman need not, of necessity, be heartless."
"O no, of course not; nor did I mean to say so. But it is very certain, to my mind, that any one who follows the fashions cannot be very sound in the head. And where there is not much head, it seems to me there is never a superabundance of heart."
"Quite a philosopher!"
"You needn't try to beat me off by ridicule, Mary. I am in earnest."