And we did succeed in finding the dress, strong and warm and suitable; the cloak we had to go to another shop for. On the way we stopped at the milliner's. My Aunt Gary and Mrs. Sandford employed the same one.
"I put it in your hands, Daisy!" Dr. Sandford said, as we went in. "Only let me look on."
I kept him waiting a good while, I am afraid; but he was very patient and seemed amused. I was not. The business
was very troublesome to me. This was not so easy a matter as to choose between stuffs and have the yards measured off. Bonnets are bonnets, as my aunt always said; and things good in themselves may not be in the least good for you. And I found the thing that suited was even more tempting here than it had been in the cloak wareroom. There was a little velvet hat which I fancied mamma would have bought for me; it was so stylish, and at the same time so simple, and became me so well. But it was of a price corresponding with its beauty. I turned my back on it, though I seemed to see it just as well through the back of my head, and tried to find something else. The milliner would have it there was nothing beside that fitted me. The hat must go on.
"She has grown," said the milliner, appealing to Dr. Sandford; "and you see this is the very thing. This tinge of colour inside is just enough to relieve the pale cheeks. Do you see, sir?"
"It is without a fault," said the doctor.
"Take it off, please," I said. "I want to find something that will not cost so much—something that will not cost near so much."
"There is that cap that is too large for Miss Van Allen—" the milliner's assistant remarked.
"It would not suit Mrs. Randolph at all," was the answer aside.
But I begged to see it. Now this was a comfortable, soft quilted silk cap, with a chinchilla border. Not much style about it, but also nothing to dislike, except its simplicity. The price was moderate, and it fitted me.