We may presume, therefore, that, as in the custom of Elizabethan times, Olivia is dressed in the deepest mourning, and wears a black veil to hide her sorrowing face. Next in social importance, in Olivia's house, comes her uncle, Sir Toby, who, as a blood relation--for Olivia's father may have been his brother--also wears black, and, being a knight, should wear velvet or silk, and a gold order. He is out of humour with his niece for the way she parades her grief and shuts herself away from all company. To relieve the monotony of his existence he brings a fellow-knight into the house, calls back the clown who had run away out of sheer boredom, and gives himself up to eating, drinking, and singing. Maria, who marries Sir Toby at the end of the play, is a lady by birth and breeding, attending on the Countess, and, therefore, as one of the household, is dressed in black, and so also are the servants, including Fabian and Malvolio. These latter would all wear black cloth liveries, and Malvolio, in addition, a braided steward's gown, not unlike that worn by a beadle, with a badge on his arm showing his mistress's coat of arms, and a plated neck-chain, as a symbol of his office. It will be seen at once what a shock it would be to Olivia's sense of propriety, in view of her recent bereavement, for her steward to turn up unexpectedly in coloured stockings, especially when she had reason to believe that he had more regard and compassion for her sorrow than anyone else in the house, because of his staid and solemn demeanour. It is not unlikely, besides, that Malvolio, in anticipation of his certain promotion to the ranks of the aristocracy by his marriage with Olivia, had donned, in addition to yellow stockings, some rich costume, put on in imitation of those fashionable young noblemen at court who wore silk scarves crossed above and below the knee, since without the costume his own cross-gartering would not have been in keeping. And indeed in anticipation of his social advancement he alluded to this change of costume in his soliloquy, "sitting in my state ... in my branched _velvet_ gown." Here, then, was Malvolio appearing before the Countess in a "get up" that was not so much comic as audacious in its daring imitation of the only man suitable in rank to marry a rich countess--that is, an earl.