"Don't I?"
"No, you don't, Susie: you know you don't. You never go into society, and you wear your dresses the same way all the time, just as Grandma Summerhaze does. But I'm just making my début"—and Gertrude flushed and tossed her head with a pretty confusion, because she was conscious of having made a sounding speech—"and I need lots of things, such as the rest of the girls have."
"My dear Gertrude," began Brother Tom, "'beauty unadorned'—"
"Oh, do, pray, Tom, have mercy upon us!" Gertrude said testily. "Unfortunately, I happen not to be a beauty, so I need some adorning. Moreover, I don't admit that beauty can do without adorning. There's Minnie Lathrop: she's a beauty, but she wouldn't improve herself by leaving off flowers and ribbons and laces, and dressing herself like a nun. Dear me! she does have the loveliest things! Mine are so shabby beside them. I'm about the tag-end of our set, anyhow, in matters of dress. I think, Susie, you might give me a hundred or two dollars."
"To waste in ribbons and bonnets?" asked business-woman Susan.
"Why, Susie, how you do talk! A body would think you had never worn a ribbon, and that you'd gone bareheaded all the days of your life. But you needn't talk: it's not so long ago but I can remember when you were as fond of dress as any girl in the city. I remember how you used to tease mamma for pretty things."
"Which I never got, even though I was earning them over and over." Susan spoke half sadly, half bitterly.
"Well, you ought to have had nice things, Susie, when you were in society," Gertrude insisted. "Girls can't get married if they're shabby and old-fashioned."
"That's true," said Susan gravely.
"I think," continued her sister, "it's the meanest feeling, the sheep-ish-est"—Gertrude syllabled the word to make sure of her hold on it—"in this world to know that the gentlemen are ashamed to show you attention. Now, I'm cleverer and better-looking than lots of girls in our set—Delia Spaulding, for instance—but I don't have half the attention she receives, just on account of her fixings and furbelows."