Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/242

 amused Margaret, who had been more accustomed to society in her one year in Harley Street than her mother in five and twenty years of Helstone.

"Then you think you shall wear your white silk. Are you sure it will fit? It's nearly a year since Edith was married!"

"Oh yes, mamma! Mrs. Murray made it, and it's sure to be right; it may be a straw's breadth shorter or longer-waisted, according to my having grown fat or thin. But I don't think I've altered in the least."

"Hadn't you better let Dixon see it? It may have gone yellow with lying by."

"If you like, mamma. But if the worst comes to the worst, I've a very nice pink gauze which aunt Shaw gave me, only two or three months before Edith was married. That can't have gone yellow."

"No! but it may have faded."

"Well! then I've a green silk. I feel more as if it was the embarrassment of riches."

"I wish I knew what you ought to wear," said Mrs. Hale, nervously.

Margaret's manner changed instantly. "Shall I go and put them on one after another, mamma, and then you could see which you liked best?"

"But—yes! perhaps that will be best."

So off Margaret went. She was very much inclined to play some pranks when she was dressed up at such an unusual hour; to make her rich white silk balloon out into a cheese, to retreat backwards from her mother as if she were the queen;but when she found that these freaks of hers were regarded as interruptions to the serious business, and as such