As she had no attendant, she went early to Mrs. Van Pelt's, feeling at liberty to be unceremonious; and she thought, with a beating heart, that Christian would be her escort home. Mrs. Van Pelt was not in the parlor when Mary entered, but Christian received her kindly, though with a slight embarrassment that embarrassed her. She tried to keep the love-flicker from her eyes and the love-tremor from her voice as she sat there alone with the man she loved, trying to reply indifferently to his indifferent remarks, and wondering if he could not hear the beating of her heart. She was greatly relieved at the entrance of Mrs. Van Pelt. When this lady had kissed her guest, she stepped off a few paces and looked the girl over. "Your dress is very becoming, my dear," she said, "but why did you get a brocade? Don't you know that brocades are out of style? Nobody wears brocades; and they are not trimming with lace at all. I wish you had advised with me." The blood rushed to Mary's face. Though she did not turn her eyes to Christian's, she knew that they were looking at her--that he was noting her confusion and comprehending its cause. "He knows why I have bought this brocade," was her thought, "and he knows that I am humiliated in having my poverty held up to his view. Of course Christian knows that I am poor, and he must know, as a consequence, that I wear poor clothes. I can endure that he should know this in a general way, while I shrink from having the details of my poverty revealed to him. I would not wish my patched gaiters and darned stockings held up for his inspection." Mary hesitated a moment before replying to Mrs. Van Pelt's criticism. Then, with a feeling that it was better to acknowledge a poverty of which both her companions were cognizant than an ignorance of style, she said, with a slight kindling of the eye, "I decided on this dress from economical considerations, and the lace is some which my mother's great-grandmother brought from Holland.--I have reminded them, at least, that I had a grandfather," she thought. As she finished speaking she lifted her eyes to Christian's. She could not understand the expression she saw there. But the poor girl's satisfaction in her dress was all gone. She was ready to reproach her mother for the reassuring words that had helped to generate it. "What if it is pretty? it is old-fashioned. No matter that the lace is rich, when nobody wears it. I must look as though I were dressed in my grandmother's clothes. I wish I was back in my poor home. There I am at least sheltered from criticism. I am a fool in daring to face fashion: I am the silly moth in the candle."