s
added: "If she went home and asked her mother for a long petticoat, the
fat would all be in the fire."

For a woman at least as conscientious as the average of her sex, Persis
was singularly unmindful of the enormity of encouraging a daughter to
act in defiance of her mother's wishes. Had she been called upon to
defend herself, she might have explained that she had small respect for
the authority of a motherhood which had never progressed beyond the
physical relationship. Annabel, a reluctant mother in the beginning,
had been consistently selfish ever since, and Persis gave scant
recognition to parental rights that were not the out-growth of parental
love. Moreover, the project she had in mind was of too complex
importance for her to allow it to be side-tracked by petty scruples.

"Like enough she'll refuse to pay my bill," thought Persis, with a grim
smile, as she watched Diantha turning the gaily colored plates like a
butterfly fluttering from blossom to blossom. "I guess she won't go as
far as that though, as long as there ain't another dressmaker in
Clematis she'd trust to make her a kimono. If she says anything,
that'll pave the way for me to give her a good plain talking to, and
even if I never get a cent for the dress, I might as well give my
missionary money that way as any other."

The rush of the season--Clematis is sufficiently sophisticated to know
in what months propriety demands overworking one's dressmaker and
milliner--was already over, and the little frock made rapid progress.
Cheap and plain and simple as it was, its effect upon the wearer, even
in its stages of incompleteness, was so striking that Persis sometimes
forgot her official duty in the satisfaction of a long admiring stare.
And probably in her sixteen years of existence, Diantha had never so
nearly approximated all the cardinal virtues as in that idyllic week.
She besieged Persis with offers of assistance, pleading for permission
to pull basting threads or overcast seams. At home she was gentle,
yielding, subdued. Her father, having learned through bitter
experience how open to the attack of a million miseries love makes the
heart, had resolved that fate should not again trick him. He had
steeled himself against the appeal of Diantha's babyhood and had
watched unmoved her precocious development. The mocking politeness
which characterized his manner toward his wife was replaced in the case
of the daughter by a distant formality.