Mrs.Tadman had need to hold his every-day coat up to the light to convince him that the collar was threadbare, and that the sleeves shone as if purposely polished by some ingenious process.
"Marriage is an expensive thing," she told him again, with a sigh; "and young girls expect to see a man dressed ever so smart on his wedding-day." "I don't care for her expectations," Mr.Whitelaw muttered, in reply to this remark; "and if I don't want the clothes, I won't have 'em.

Do you think I could get over next Christmas with them as I've got ?" Mrs.Tadman said "No" in a most decisive manner.

Perhaps she derived a malicious pleasure from the infliction of that tailor's bill upon her cousin Whitelaw.

So the new suit had been finally ordered; and Stephen stood arrayed therein before the altar-rails in the gray old church at Crosber, a far more grotesque and outrageous figure to contemplate than any knight templar, or bearded cavalier of the days of the first English James, whose effigies were to be seen in the chancel.

Mrs.Tadman stood a little way behind him, in a merino gown, and a new bonnet, extorted somehow from the reluctant Stephen.