“O mamma!” murmured the girl, dyed with shame to have the facts so boldly touched, but not, probably, too deeply displeased.

“Yes.  And I know that he would never have thought of going into that business if he had not expected—­hoped—­”

“Mamma!”

“And you ought to consider—­”

“Oh, don’t! don’t! don’t!” implored the girl.

“That’s all,” said her mother, turning from Alice, who had hidden her face in her hands, to inspect the costume on the bed.  She lifted one piece of it after another, turned it over, looked at it, and laid it down.  “You can never get such a dress in this country.”

She went out of the room, as the girl dropped her face in the pillow.  An hour later they met equipped for the evening’s pleasure.  To the keen glance that her mother gave her, the daughter’s eyes had the brightness of eyes that have been weeping, but they were also bright with that knowledge of her own mind which Mrs. Pasmer had desired for her.  She met her mother’s glance fearlessly, even proudly, and she carried her stylish costume with a splendour to which only occasions could stimulate her.  They dramatised a perfect unconsciousness to each other, but Mrs. Pasmer was by no means satisfied with the decision which she had read in her daughter’s looks.  Somehow it did not relieve her of the responsibility, and it did not change the nature of the case.  It was gratifying, of course, to see Alice the object of a passion so sincere and so ardent; so far the triumph was complete, and there was really nothing objectionable in the young man and his circumstances, though there was nothing very distinguished.  But the affair was altogether different from anything that Mrs. Pasmer had imagined.  She had supposed and intended that Alice should meet some one in Boston, and go through a course of society before reaching any decisive step.  There was to be a whole season in which to look the ground carefully over, and the ground was to be all within certain well-ascertained and guarded precincts.  But this that had happened was outside of these precincts, of at least on their mere outskirts.  Class Day, of course, was all right; and she could not say that the summer colony at Campobello was not thoroughly and essentially Boston; and yet she felt that certain influences, certain sanctions, were absent.  To tell the truth, she would not have cared for the feelings of Mavering’s family in regard to the matter, except as they might afterward concern Alice, and the time had not come when she could recognise their existence in regard to the affair; and yet she could have wished that even as it was his family could have seen and approved it from the start.  It would have been more regular.