Book 6 - Chapter 9 - Page 2

together with a determination to test them by trying on, as to make
her post a very conspicuous one. The ladies who had commodities of
their own to sell, and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the
frivolity and bad taste of this masculine preference for goods which
any tailor could furnish; and it is possible that the emphatic notice
of various kinds which was drawn toward Miss Tulliver on this public
occasion, threw a very strong and unmistakable light on her subsequent
conduct in many minds then present. Not that anger, on account of
spurned beauty can dwell in the celestial breasts of charitable
ladies, but rather that the errors of persons who have once been much
admired necessarily take a deeper tinge from the mere force of
contrast; and also, that to-day Maggie's conspicuous position, for the
first time, made evident certain characteristics which were
subsequently felt to have an explanatory bearing. There was something
rather bold in Miss Tulliver's direct gaze, and something undefinably
coarse in the style of her beauty, which placed her, in the opinion of
all feminine judges, far below her cousin Miss Deane; for the ladies
of St. Ogg's had now completely ceded to Lucy their hypothetic claims
on the admiration of Mr. Stephen Guest.

As for dear little Lucy herself, her late benevolent triumph about the
Mill, and all the affectionate projects she was cherishing for Maggie
and Philip, helped to give her the highest spirits to-day, and she
felt nothing but pleasure in the evidence of Maggie's attractiveness.
It is true, she was looking very charming herself, and Stephen was
paying her the utmost attention on this public occasion; jealously
buying up the articles he had seen under her fingers in the process of
making, and gayly helping her to cajole the male customers into the
purchase of the most effeminate futilities. He chose to lay aside his
hat and wear a scarlet fez of her embroidering; but by superficial
observers this was necessarily liable to be interpreted less as a
compliment to Lucy than as a mark of coxcombry. "Guest is a great
coxcomb," young Torry observed; "but then he is a privileged person in
St. Ogg's--he carries all before him; if another fellow did such
things, everybody would say he made a fool of himself."

And Stephen purchased absolutely nothing from Maggie, until Lucy said,
in rather a vexed undertone,--

"See, now; all the things of Maggie's knitting will be gone, and you
will not have bought one. There are those deliciously soft warm things
for the wrists,--do buy them."

"Oh no," said Stephen, "they must be intended for imaginative persons,
who can chill themselves on this warm day by thinking of the frosty
Caucasus. Stern reason is my forte,