I Forbid the Banns! — page 204: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XXIixX. ON VARIETY IN LACE, fY\HE anxiety which Mrs. Charlton had displayed regard- ing her trunks was not to end the next day. A groom met the trains at Brackenhurst station, but though they con- tained much that was valuable and interesting consigned to the Court from London tradesmen, yet the goods’ van con- tained no trunk addressed to Mrs. Charlton. In the afternoon a second telegram was sent to Miriam; and Bertha resolved that if the trunks did not arrive on the next day she would go to London for them in person. It was all very well at an Australian station, where civilization was only holding its own by the aid of a stock whip, to live apart from the luxuries of tea gowns, of white velvet smothered in old Mechlin lace, and of dinner dresses of pink silk embroidered with pearls—these were not absolute neces- sities in the bush; but it was a very different thing when one came to associate with Romneys, and Sir Joshuas, and Sir Peters. One could not appear in the presence of so many scrutinizing eyes of people who knew so well what it was to be well dressed, unless one looked one’s best. She felt herself constantly apologizing for her one dress to these coldly critical ladies—she did not mind their husbands in the least; she was not so sure that a man knew all about the art of dressing. She had heard the remarks of men occa- sionally on the subject of a woman’s dress, and they dis- played an amount of ignorance that was most discouraging to a girl. , Bertha was clever enough to know that women do not dress for the eyes of men, but for the eyes of women. 194 Gomichooks (EC)