Her hair was worn in a low coil in her neck, making the general appearance and contour of her head much as it had been three years before.  She wore no jewelry, save the unobtrusive gold buckle at her belt and the plain gold hatpin which fastened her hat.  There was nothing about her which marked her as one of the “four hundred.”  She did not even wear her gloves, but carried them in her hand, and threw them carelessly upon the table when she arrived in Flora Street.  Long, soft white ones, they lay there in their costly elegance beside Lizzie’s post-card album that the livery-stable man gave her on her birthday, all the long day while Elizabeth was at Willow Grove, and Lizzie sweltered around under her pink parasol in long white silk gloves.

Grandmother Brady surveyed Elizabeth with decided disapproval.  It seemed too bad on this her day of triumph, and after she had given a hint, as it were, about Lizzie’s fine clothes, that the girl should be so blind or stubborn or both as to come around in that plain rig.  Just a common white dress, and an old hat that might have been worn about a livery-stable.  It was mortifying in the extreme.  She expected a light silk, and kid gloves, and a beflowered hat.  Why, Lizzie looked a great deal finer.  Did Mrs. Bailey rig her out this way for spite? she wondered.

But, as it was too late to send Elizabeth back for more fitting garments, the old lady resigned herself to her disappointment.  The pink parasol was lovely, and Lizzie was wild over it.  Even Aunt Nan seemed mollified.  It gave her great satisfaction to look the two girls over.  Her own outshone the one from Rittenhouse Square by many counts, so thought the mother; but all day long, as she walked behind them or viewed them from afar, she could not understand why it was that the people who passed them always looked twice at Elizabeth and only once at Lizzie.  It seemed, after all, that clothes did not make the girl.  It was disappointing.

The box of candy was all that could possibly be desired.  It was ample for the needs of them all, including the two youths from the livery-stable who had attached themselves to their party from the early morning.  In fact, it was two boxes, one of the most delectable chocolates of all imaginable kinds, and the other of mixed candies and candied fruit.  Both boxes bore the magic name “Huyler’s” on the covers.  Lizzie had often passed Huyler’s, taking her noon walk on Chestnut Street, and looked enviously at the girls who walked in and out with white square bundles tied with gold cord as if it were an everyday affair.  And now she was actually eating all she pleased of those renowned candies.  It was almost like belonging to the great elite.

It was a long day and a pleasant one even to Elizabeth.  She had never been to Willow Grove before, and the strange blending of sweet nature and Vanity Fair charmed her.  It was a rest after the winter’s round of monotonous engagements.  Even the loud-voiced awkward youths from the livery-stable did not annoy her extremely.  She took them as a part of the whole, and did not pay much attention to them.  They were rather shy of her, giving the most of their attention to Lizzie, much to the satisfaction of Aunt Nan.