dden her
face in her hands, to inspect the costume on the bed. She lifted one
piece of it after another, turned it over, looked at it, and laid it
down. "You can never get such a dress in this country."

She went out of the room, as the girl dropped her face in the pillow.
An hour later they met equipped for the evening's pleasure. To the keen
glance that her mother gave her, the daughter's eyes had the brightness
of eyes that have been weeping, but they were also bright with that
knowledge of her own mind which Mrs. Pasmer had desired for her. She
met her mother's glance fearlessly, even proudly, and she carried her
stylish costume with a splendour to which only occasions could stimulate
her. They dramatised a perfect unconsciousness to each other, but Mrs.
Pasmer was by no means satisfied with the decision which she had read
in her daughter's looks. Somehow it did not relieve her of the
responsibility, and it did not change the nature of the case. It was
gratifying, of course, to see Alice the object of a passion so sincere
and so ardent; so far the triumph was complete, and there was really
nothing objectionable in the young man and his circumstances, though
there was nothing very distinguished. But the affair was altogether
different from anything that Mrs. Pasmer had imagined. She had supposed
and intended that Alice should meet some one in Boston, and go through
a course of society before reaching any decisive step. There was to be a
whole season in which to look the ground carefully over, and the ground
was to be all within certain well-ascertained and guarded precincts. But
this that had happened was outside of these precincts, of at least on
their mere outskirts. Class Day, of course, was all right; and she could
not say that the summer colony at Campobello was not thoroughly and
essentially Boston; and yet she felt that certain influences, certain
sanctions, were absent. To tell the truth, she would not have cared for
the feelings of Mavering's family in regard to the matter, except as
they might afterward concern Alice, and the time had not come when she
could recognise their existence in regard to the affair; and yet she
could have wished that even as it was his family could have seen and
approved it from the start. It would have been more regular.

With Alice it was a simpler matter, and of course deeper. For her it
was only a question of himself and herself; no one else existed to the
sublime egotism of h