"Besides, dress is a sort of sacrament, if I may use the word--a sure sign
of the wearer's character; according as any one is orderly, or modest, or
tasteful, or joyous, or brilliant"--and I glanced again at Lillian--"those
excellences, or the want of them, are sure to show themselves, in the
colours they choose, and the cut of their garments. In the workroom, I and
a friend of mine used often to amuse ourselves over the clothes we were
making, by speculating from them on the sort of people the wearers were to
be; and I fancy we were not often wrong."
My cousin looked daggers at me, and for a moment I fancied I had committed
a dreadful mistake in mentioning my tailor-life. So I had in his eyes, but
not in those of the really well-bred persons round me.
"Oh, how very amusing it must have been! I think I shall turn milliner,
Eleanor, for the fun of divining every one's little failings from their
caps and gowns!"
"Go on, Mr. Locke," said the dean, who had seemed buried in the
"Transactions of the Royal Society." "The fact is novel, and I am more
obliged to any one who gives me that, than if he gave me a bank-note.
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