"It is my workaday dress. I have a better for Sunday."
"I dare say--I dare say. What do they call you? Molly? It is a good name for you. Molly. There is something simple about it--something rustical yet not uncouth, like Blousabella. Your face will pass, Molly. It is a fair garden of red and white. Your eyes are good; they can be soft and affectionate. I should think they could also be hard and unforgiving. Your hair is delightful; even the tresses of Amaryllis are coarse and thick compared with yours. Your hand, my dear, is a soft and warm hand, but it is too red--you work with it."
"The only work you should do is the shuffling and the dealing of cards--your hands were made for this purpose--or to handle a fan, or to wear gloves; but not to work, believe me."
Molly looked at her hand. It was a workwoman's hand, being, though small, thick and strong, with fingers square rather than long. She looked and laughed. "What would you say, madam, if you saw me rowing a boat or handling the sail while Jack Pentecrosse steers? I have done much rougher work in a boat than in the stillroom."
"These confessions amaze me, my dear. With ships--actually the plural of the word ship!--and lands--what lands?--and houses, and that sum of money, that you should live in a house like this, without servants, without dress--your clothes are not dress--without a coach--and that you should be allowed.... Pray, Molly, what does your mother think of it?"
"My mother teaches me to do what she herself does."
"Yet you came the other night in a costly dress, and you danced the minuet."
"The director of the ceremonies, Mr. Prappet, taught me the dance."
"You acquitted yourself tolerably, considering your partner, who made everybody laugh. There was, however, too much of the dancing school in your style. A minuet, child, should convey the idea of gesture unstudied. Not natural. Heaven forbid that the world of fashion should ever be natural! No, but springing out of the courtesy of the situation, in accordance with the practice of the polite world. The cavalier woos the maiden, not in the country fashion of swain and shepherdess, whose wooing is a plain and direct question with a plain and direct answer, but with formal advances according to well understood rules, which demand certain postures and gestures. Who dressed you?"