Tod himself was imaginatively
supposed to share it and exhibit preternatural intelligence upon the
subject. In Dolly it amounted to a passion which she found it impossible
to resist. By it she was prompted to divers small extravagances at
times, and by it she was assisted in the arranging of all her personal
adornments. It was impossible to slight the mental picture of Mollie
with maroon drapery falling about her feet, with her cheeks tinted with
excited color, and with that marvel of delight in her eyes. She could
not help thinking about it.

"She would be simply incomparable," she found herself soliloquizing.
"Just give her that dress, put a white flower in her hair and set her
down in a ballroom, or in the dress circle of a theatre, and she would
set the whole place astir. Oh, she must have it."

It was very foolish and extravagant of course; even the people who are
weakly tolerant enough to rather lean toward Dorothea Crewe, will
admit this. The money that would purchase the maroon garment would have
purchased a dozen minor articles far more necessary to the dilapidated
household; but while straining at such domestic gnats as these articles
were, she was quite willing and even a trifle anxious to swallow
Mollie's gorgeous camel. Such impulsive inconsistency was
characteristic, however, and she betook herself to her bedroom with the
intention of working out the problem of accommodating supply to demand.

She took out her purse and emptied its contents on to her
dressing-table. Two or three crushed bills, a scrap or so of
poetry presented by Griffith upon various tender occasions, and a
discouragingly small banknote, the sole remains of her last quarter's
salary The supply was not equal to the demand, it was evident. But she
was by no means overpowered. She was dashed, but not despairing. Of
course, she had not expected to launch into such a reckless piece of
expenditure all at once, she had only thought she might attain her
modest ambition in the due course of time, and she thought so yet. She
crammed bills and bank-note back into the purse with serene cheerfulness
and shut it with a little snap of the clasp.

"I will begin to save up," she said, "and I will persuade Phil to help
me. We can surely do it between us, and then we will take her somewhere
and let her have her first experience of modern society. What a
sensation she would create in the camps of the Philistines!"

She descended into the kitchen after t