When she opened her door a wonder arrested her. Before going
out she had closed her shutters against the afternoon heat, but they had
swung partly open, and a bar of moonlight, crossing the room, rested
on her bed and showed a dress of China silk laid out on it in virgin
whiteness. Charity had spent more than she could afford on the dress,
which was to surpass those of all the other girls; she had wanted to let
North Dormer see that she was worthy of Harney's admiration. Above the
dress, folded on the pillow, was the white veil which the young women
who took part in the exercises were to wear under a wreath of asters;
and beside the veil a pair of slim white satin shoes that Ally had
produced from an old trunk in which she stored mysterious treasures.
Charity stood gazing at all the outspread whiteness. It recalled a
vision that had come to her in the night after her first meeting with
Harney. She no longer had such visions... warmer splendours had displaced
them... but it was stupid of Ally to have paraded all those white things
on her bed, exactly as Hattie Targatt's wedding dress from Springfield
had been spread out for the neighbours to see when she married Tom
Fry.
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