"Yes."
"But there is some sense in your aunt's adoption of fashion," said uncle Absalom.
"Though not much, it would seem in yours, if you estimate fashion by use," retorted Mary.
"What does the girl mean?" asked aunt Abigail in surprise.
"Of what use, uncle, are those two buttons on the back of your coat?"
"I am sure I don't know."
"Then why do you wear them if you don't know their use, unless it be that you wish to be in the fashion? Then there are two more at the bottom of the skirt, half hid, half seen, as if they were ashamed to be found so much out of their place. Then, can you enlighten me as to the use of these two pieces of cloth here, called, I believe, flaps?"
"To give strength to that part of the coat, I presume."
"And yet it is only a year or two since it was the fashion to have no flaps at all. I do not remember ever to have seen a coat torn there, do you? It is no use, uncle—you might as well be out of the world as out of the fashion. And old people feel this as well as young. They have their fashions, and we have ours, and they are as much the votaries of their peculiar modes as we are of our. The only difference is, that, as our states of mind change more rapidly, there is a corresponding and more rapid change in our fashions. You change as well as we do—but slower."
"How could you talk to uncle Absalom and aunt Abigail as you did?" said Henry Grove to his sister, as they walked slowly home together.