"Some of 'em must have smashed; it's awful strong everywhere--smell that"-- and she held out a bit of lace which she had taken from the case, a dressing-sacque that Lucy had used on the steamer.
Lucy laughed.

"And you don't like it?
How funny, you dear old thing! That was made specially for me; no one else in Paris has a drop." And then the dresses! Particularly the one she was to wear the first night--a dress flounced and furbelowed and of a creamy white (she still wore mourning--delicate purples shading to white--the exact tone for a husband six months dead).

And the filmy dressing-gowns, and, more wonderful than all, the puff of smoke she was to sleep in, held together by a band of violet ribbon; to say nothing of the dainty slippers bound about with swan's-down, and the marvellous hats, endless silk stockings of mauve, white, and black, and long and short gloves.
In all her life Martha had never seen or heard of such things.

The room was filled with them and the two big closets crammed to overflowing, and yet a dozen trunks were not yet unpacked, including the two small boxes holding little Ellen's clothes.
The night was one long to be remembered.

Everyone said the Manor House had not been so gay for years.