You will write to her, mamma--and so shall I."
"We shall make him, I fear, very angry."
"Oliver? Well, there are moments in every family when it is no use
shirking. We have to think of Oliver's career, and what he may do for
his party, and for reform. You think he proposed to her in that walk on
the hill?" said Mrs. Fotheringham, turning to her cousin Alicia.
Alicia woke up from a brown-study of her own. She was dressed with her
usual perfection in a gray cloth, just suggesting the change of season.
Her felt hat with its plume of feathers lay on her lap, and her hair,
slightly loosened by the journey, captured the eye by its abundance and
beauty. The violets on her breast perfumed the room, and the rings upon
her hands flashed just as much as is permitted to an unmarried girl, and
no more. As Mrs. Fotheringham looked at her, she said to herself:
"Another Redfern! Really Alicia is too extravagant!"
On that head no one could have reproached herself. A cheap coat and
skirt, much worn, a hat of no particular color or shape, frayed gloves
and disreputable boots, proclaimed both the parsimony of her father's
will and the independence of her opinions.
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