I like a woman to wear neat and becoming things all the time.' 'I am sure,' I said, 'Judith's clothes are always very neat!' "'If you mean clean,' he said, 'I will agree to that, but when the color is all washed out of a thing, or it is faded in streaks like that blue gown she wears, the wearing of it day after day is bound to make a person think that a young woman does not care how she looks to her own family, and I do not like young women not to care how they look to their families, especially when calico is only twelve cents a yard, and needles and thread cost almost nothing.' 'Matthias,' said I, 'I expect you have been to see Dorcas Stone, and are comparing her clothes with Judith's.
Now, Dorcas' father is a well-to-do man, and Judith hasn't any father, and she does the best she can with the clothes she has.' 'It is not money I am talking about,' he said, 'it is disposition.

If a young woman wants to look well in her own family, she will find some way to do it.

At any rate, she could let it be seen that she is not satisfied to look like a dowdy.' And then he went away.
"This was the first time that Matthias had ever spoken to me about Judith, and I knew just as well as if he had told me that it was Dorcas Stone's clothes that had got him into that way of thinking.
"More than that, I knew he would never have taken the trouble to say that much about Judith if he had not been taking more interest in her than he ever had before.

He was a practical, businesslike man, and I believed then, and I believe now, that he was looking for some one to be mistress of Cobhurst, and if Judith had suited his ideas of what such a woman ought to be, he would have preferred her to any one else.

I think that was about as far as he was likely to go in such matters at that time, though of course if he had gotten a loving wife, he might have become a loving husband, for Matthias was a good fellow at bottom, though rather hard on top.
"When he had gone, I went straight upstairs to Judith, and said to her, if she knew what was good for her, she would get out that teaberry gown and put it on for supper, and wear it regularly at meals and at all times when it would be suitable as a house gown.