“One of the most striking persons there was your friend Mrs. Norton, Miss Appleton,” said Mrs. Henry Willing.
“I never saw her look more beautiful,” remarked another.
“Nor more beautifully dressed,” said Mrs. Willing quietly, but with meaning.
Emma colored at this, for she felt the innuendo. Mr. Norton had failed not very long since, and the extravagance of his pretty wife had not escaped its due portion at least of animadversion.
“What was it?” asked Emma.
“A very rich blue silk, with flounces of superb lace almost to the hips,” replied Mrs. Willing in a tone that conveyed as much reprehension as tones could convey.
“Oh, that’s the same lace she has worn these three years,” said Emma, vexed that her pretty friend could not even wear her old things without exciting unkind remarks.
“It does not look well, Emma,” remarked Mrs. Grayson. “Though it is not new, it is expensive, and not in keeping with their present circumstances, it’s in bad taste.”
Emma looked disconcerted, and said she thought that a matter of very little importance when every body knew the lace almost as well as they did Mrs. Norton herself.
Mrs. Willing however did not think so. “Every body knew the expense attendant on society, and she thought it altogether indiscreet in Mrs. Norton to be out as constantly as she was. It excited much remark.”