l her, Tommy? It is a thing you are good at, and you
have been polishing up the phrases ever since she passed down the
aisle with Master Shiach in her arms; you have even planned out a way
of putting Grizel at her ease, and behold, she is the only one of the
three who is at ease. What has come over you? Does the reader think it
was love? No, it was only that pall of shyness; he tried to fling it
off, but could not. Behold Tommy being buried alive!

Elspeth showed less contemptibly than her brother, but it was Grizel
who did most of the talking. She nodded her head and smiled crookedly
at Tommy, but she was watching him all the time. She wore a dress in
which brown and yellow mingled as in woods on an autumn day, and the
jacket had a high collar of fur, over which she watched him. Let us
say that she was watching to see whether any of the old Tommy was left
in him. Yet, with this problem confronting her, she also had time to
study the outer man, Tommy the dandy--his velvet jacket (a new one),
his brazen waistcoat, his poetic neckerchief, his spotless linen. His
velvet jacket was to become the derision of Thrums, but Tommy took his
bonneting haughtily, like one who was glad to suffer for a Cause.
There were to be meetings here and there where people told with awe
how many shirts he sent weekly to the wash. Grizel disdained his dandy
tastes; why did not Elspeth strip him of them? And oh, if he must
wear that absurd waistcoat, could she not see that it would look
another thing if the second button was put half an inch farther back?
How sinful of him to spoil the shape of his silly velvet jacket by
carrying so many letters in the pockets! She learned afterwards that
he carried all those letters because there was a check in one of them,
he did not know which, and her sense of orderliness was outraged.
Elspeth did not notice these things. She helped Tommy by her
helplessness. There is reason to believe that once in London, when she
had need of a new hat, but money there was none, Tommy, looking very
defiant, studied ladies' hats in the shop-windows, brought all his
intellect to bear on them, with the result that he did concoct out of
Elspeth's old hat a new one which was the admired of O.P. Pym and
friends, who never knew the name of the artist. But obviously he could
not take proper care of himself, and there is a kind of woman, of whom
Grizel was one, to whose breasts this helplessness makes an unfair
appeal. Oh, to dress hi