when at home.]

"Never mind, never mind," retorted Mrs. Bell, who, with true delicacy,
would not look at her blushing daughter.

"I was thinking Matty, my love, that you wanted a new evening dress. I
don't like you to be behind any one else, my dear, and that green skirt
with the white jacket, though genteel enough, doesn't seem quite the
thing. I can't tell what's the matter with it, for the mohair in the
skirts cost nine-pence half-penny a yard, and the first day you wore
those dresses, girls, they shone as if they were silk, and your father
asked me why I was so extravagant, and said that though he would like it
he hadn't money to dress you up in silk attire. Poor Bell has a turn for
poetry, and if he had not lost his money through the badness of the coal
trade, he'd make you look like _three poems_, that's what he said
to me. Well, well, somehow the dresses are handsome, and yet I don't
like them."

"They're hideous," said Matty, kicking out her foot with a petulant
movement. "Somehow, those home-made dresses never look right. They don't
sit properly. We weren't a bit like the other girls at Mrs.
Meadowsweet's a fortnight ago."

"No," said Alice, "we weren't. The Bertrams had nothing but full skirts
and baby bodies, and sashes round their waists, just like little girls.
Mabel Bertram's dress was only down to her ankles--nothing could have
been plainer--no style at all, and yet we didn't look like them."

"Well," said the mother, bristling and bridling, "handsome dresses or
not, _somebody_ admired _somebody_ at that party, or I'm greatly
mistaken. Well, Matty dear, what would you fancy for evening wear? If my
purse will stand it you shall have it. I won't have you behind no one,
my love."

It was at this critical moment, when Matty's giggles prevented her
speaking, and Alice was casting some truly sarcastic and sisterly shafts
at her, that Sophy burst open the door, and announced, in an excited
voice, that Mrs. Middlemass, the pedler, had just stepped into the hall.

"She has got some lovely things to-day," exclaimed Sophy. "Shall we have
her up, mamma? Have we anything to exchange?"

"It's only a week since she was here," replied Mrs. Bell. "And she
pretty nearly cleared us out then. Still it would be a comfort if we
could squeeze a frock for Matty out of her. I could buy the trimmings
easy enough for you, Matty, at Perry's, if I hadn't to pay for the
stuff. Dear, dear, now what can we exchange? Look here,