Her heart gave a leap of joy, but it reached her lips only in
a shy stammer. She remembered other girls whom she had heard planning to
extract presents from their fellows, and was seized with a sudden dread
lest Harney should have imagined that she had leaned over the pretty
things in the glass case in the hope of having one given to her....
A little farther down the street they turned in at a glass doorway
opening on a shining hall with a mahogany staircase, and brass cages in
its corners. "We must have something to eat," Harney said; and the next
moment Charity found herself in a dressing-room all looking-glass and
lustrous surfaces, where a party of showy-looking girls were dabbing
on powder and straightening immense plumed hats. When they had gone she
took courage to bathe her hot face in one of the marble basins, and
to straighten her own hat-brim, which the parasols of the crowd had
indented. The dresses in the shops had so impressed her that she
scarcely dared look at her reflection; but when she did so, the glow
of her face under her cherry-coloured hat, and the curve of her young
shoulders through the transparent muslin, restored her courage; and when
she had taken the blue brooch from its box and pinned it on her bosom
she walked toward the restaurant with her head high, as if she had
always strolled through tessellated halls beside young men in flannels.
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