Then, too, he was so clever with his smart English and his Canadian manners, so magnificent with his curled and oily locks, his resplendent jewelry, his brilliant neckties.

But that was before Irma had been brought to the little mission, and before she had learned through Margaret Ketzel and through Margaret's father and mother something of Canadian life, of Canadian people, of Canadian manners and dress.
As her knowledge in this direction extended, her admiration and reverence for Samuel Sprink faded.
The day that Irma discarded her Galician garb and blossomed forth as a Canadian young lady was the day on which she was fully cured of her admiration for Rosenblatt's clerk.

For such subtle influence does dress exercise over the mind that something of the spirit of the garb seems to pass into the spirit of the wearer.

Self-respect is often born in the tailor shop or in the costumer's parlour.
Be this as it may, it is certain that Irma's Canadian dress gave the final blow to her admiration of Samuel Sprink, and child though she was, she became conscious of a new power over not only Sprink, but over all the boarders, and instinctively she assumed a new attitude toward them.

The old coarse and familiar horseplay which she had permitted without thought at their hands, was now distasteful to her.