“I was thinking Matty, my love, that you wanted a new evening dress.  I don’t like you to be behind any one else, my dear, and that green skirt with the white jacket, though genteel enough, doesn’t seem quite the thing.  I can’t tell what’s the matter with it, for the mohair in the skirts cost nine-pence half-penny a yard, and the first day you wore those dresses, girls, they shone as if they were silk, and your father asked me why I was so extravagant, and said that though he would like it he hadn’t money to dress you up in silk attire.  Poor Bell has a turn for poetry, and if he had not lost his money through the badness of the coal trade, he’d make you look like three poems, that’s what he said to me.  Well, well, somehow the dresses are handsome, and yet I don’t like them.”

“They’re hideous,” said Matty, kicking out her foot with a petulant movement.  “Somehow, those home-made dresses never look right.  They don’t sit properly.  We weren’t a bit like the other girls at Mrs. Meadowsweet’s a fortnight ago.”

“No,” said Alice, “we weren’t.  The Bertrams had nothing but full skirts and baby bodies, and sashes round their waists, just like little girls.  Mabel Bertram’s dress was only down to her ankles—­nothing could have been plainer—­no style at all, and yet we didn’t look like them.”

“Well,” said the mother, bristling and bridling, “handsome dresses or not, somebody admired somebody at that party, or I’m greatly mistaken.  Well, Matty dear, what would you fancy for evening wear?  If my purse will stand it you shall have it.  I won’t have you behind no one, my love.”

It was at this critical moment, when Matty’s giggles prevented her speaking, and Alice was casting some truly sarcastic and sisterly shafts at her, that Sophy burst open the door, and announced, in an excited voice, that Mrs. Middlemass, the pedler, had just stepped into the hall.

“She has got some lovely things to-day,” exclaimed Sophy.  “Shall we have her up, mamma?  Have we anything to exchange?”

“It’s only a week since she was here,” replied Mrs. Bell.  “And she pretty nearly cleared us out then.  Still it would be a comfort if we could squeeze a frock for Matty out of her.  I could buy the trimmings easy enough for you, Matty, at Perry’s, if I hadn’t to pay for the stuff.  Dear, dear, now what can we exchange?  Look here, Sophy, run, like a good child, to your father’s wardrobe, and see if there are a couple of pairs of old trousers gone at the knees, and maybe that great-coat of his that had one of the flaps torn, and the patch on the left sleeve.  It was warm, certainly, but it always was a show, that great-coat.  Maybe he wouldn’t miss it, or at any rate he’d give it up to help to settle Matty.”

“Lor, ma, I really do think you are indelicate, when the man hasn’t even proposed!” exclaimed Alice.  “There’s Matty, she’s off giggling again.  I do believe she’ll soon laugh day and night without stopping.”