ut of her mouth, like cherry stones. She lifts the crimson skirt, her chin and cheeks as red in the reflected light of the silk as if stained with cochineal.
She catches my eye. ''What do you say, my dear, to these?''
I have not known such colours, such fabrics, such gowns, exist. I imagine myself in them, upon the streets of London. My heart has sunk. I say, ''They are hideous, hideous.''
She blinks, then recovers. ''You say that now. But you been kept too long in that dreary great house of your uncle''s. Is it to be wondered at if you''ve no more idea of fashion, than a bat? When you makes your debut, dear girl, upon the town, you shall have a set of dresses so gay, you shall look back on these and laugh your head off to think you ever supposed ''em bright.'' She rubs her hands. ''Now, which best takes your fancy? The arsenic green and the silver?''
''Haven''t you a grey,'' I say, ''or a brown, or a black?''
Dainty looks at me in disgust.
''Grey, brown or black?'' says Mrs Sucksby. ''When there''s silver here, and violet?''
''Make it the violet, then,'' I say at last. I think the stripe will blind me, the crimson make me sick; though I am sick, anyway. Mrs Sucksby goes to the chest of drawers and opens it up. She brings out stockings, and stays, and coloured petticoats. The petticoats astonish me: for I have always supposed that linen must be white—just as, when I was a child, I thought that all black books must turn out Bibles.