Grace fancied that she even detected a gleam of approval in his eyes as he glanced toward Marian.
"Shall we dine!" asked the judge, offering his arm to Grace, while Tom Gray escorted Miss Putnam, the other young men following with their friends.
The dinner passed off smoothly, although there was a curious constraint fell upon the young people that nothing could dispel.
Marian's gown had indeed proved a surprise to her young friends, and they could not shake off a certain sense of mortification at her lack of good taste.
"How could Marian Barber be so ridiculous, and why did her mother ever allow her to dress herself like that ?" thought Grace as she glanced at Marian, who was simpering at some remark that Mr.Henry Hammond was making to her in a voice too low for the others to hear.
Then Grace suddenly remembered that Marian's mother had left Oakdale three weeks before on a three months' visit to a sister in a distant city.
"That deceitful old Henry Hammond is at the bottom of this," Grace decided.

"He has probably put those ideas of dressing up into Marian's head.

She needs some one to look after her.

I'll ask mother if she can stay with me until her mother returns, that is if I can persuade her to come." "Come out of your brown study, Grace," called Hippy.

"I want you to settle an argument that has arisen between Miss O'Malley and myself.
Never before have we had an argument.