The one employment which entirely overcame the Polleys’ taste for idleness, and on which they entered with a will and the utmost zest, was what Oliver reckoned their unfortunate blunder in making objects of themselves in the line of dress. They could always be eagerly interested in frilling themselves from top to toe, in pulling down their old flounces, and furbelows, and bunches of skirts, and reconstructing them, if possible, in an uglier shape than before. They were never wearied of manufacturing the most grotesque apologies for hats and bonnets. Oliver thought, in contrast, of Fan and Catherine Hilliard’s simple gowns and quiet hats, which, if he had known it, ’Mily Polley classed as the dowdiest things out, and farther stated that it was her deliberate opinion, only a learned young lady with her head in the clouds, like Miss Hilliard, or a girl with the cool assurance of Fan Constable, would take it upon her to be so plain in her dress, and would not at least try to be wearing what was stylish. Oliver, poor benighted man, only marvelled, on the contrary, how even girls in their vagaries could accomplish such tremendous mistakes in what one might have imagined would have been the congenial art of adorning their own bodies. Nobody could call the Polleys’ lives gloomy or austere, yet to Oliver their enjoyments appeared grievously ignoble, even when they were not of an animal character. He was very sorry for those girls, whom no man had hired to worthy work and wages. He thought of the innumerable missions to the poor, and of the ladies who, to their unending credit, devoted much time and attention to raising the women of the lower ranks. He recalled the superior advantages which may be held at least to balance the increased temptations of the upper classes. And he reflected, with deep regret and shame, how Fan withdrew, and Catherine Hilliard recoiled, from all association with girls like the Polleys. What chance had they of escaping from irredeemable materialism and innate vulgarity—those deadly foes to all that is spiritual and really noble? What help was extended to them beyond the Sunday sermon which flew over their heads, and the verses in the Bible—which they read as a lesson, that had little or nothing to do with their past or present, but belonged, as Mrs. Polley would have said, to their ‘latter hends’—to rise above gross self-indulgence—so long as it was not what the world called vicious? For the Polleys were not merely respectable, but even inclined to be Pharisees in their loud boasting of their respectability. Yet self-indulgence, which was not absolutely vicious, was in their eyes perfectly admissible and actually laudable. A man or a woman who would not gratify himself or herself by well-nigh wallowing in the outward fruits of success, was either a screw or a minx. Heroes and saints had very little that was heroic and saintly in them to the Polleys’ mind. All were dragged down to the same low level.