He rejected the idea of her going with him to any gathering of his grand friends--objected most of all to her going to Mrs.Redmain's.

Alas! he had begun to allow to himself that he had married in too great haste--and beneath him.

Wherever he went, his wife could be no credit to him, and her presence would take from him all sense of liberty! Not choosing, however, to acknowledge either of these objections, and not willing, besides, to appear selfish in the eyes of the woman who had given herself to him, he was only too glad to put all upon another, to him equally genuine ground.

Controlling his irritation for the moment, he set forth with lordly kindness the absolute impossibility of accepting such an offer as Mary's.

Could she for a moment imagine, he said, that he would degrade himself by taking his wife out in a dress that was not her own?
Here Letty interrupted him.
"Mary has given me the dress," she sobbed, "-- for my very own." "A second-hand dress! A dress that has been worn!" cried Tom.