And Miss Juliana, who for five-and-twenty years had never appeared in anything but frowsy drab or dingy grey, Miss Juliana flaunting in silk at four o'clock in the afternoon, Miss Juliana, all shining and shimmering like a silver and mauve chameleon, was a sight to take anybody's breath away.

Martha dearly loved a scene, for to be admitted to a scene was to be admitted to her mistress's confidence; but the excellent woman knew her place, and before that flagrant apparition she withdrew as she would have withdrawn from a family scandal.
Miss Quincey advanced timidly, for of course she knew that she had to cross that room under fire of criticism; but on the whole she was less abject than she might have been, for at the moment she was thinking of Dr.Cautley.He had actually accepted her kind invitation, and that fact explained and justified her; besides, she carried her Browning in her hand, and it made her feel decidedly more natural.
Mrs.Moon restrained her feelings until her niece had moved about a bit, and sat down by her enemy the cabinet, and presented herself in every possible aspect.

The Old Lady's eyes lost no movement of the curious figure; when she had taken it in, grasped it in all its details, she began.
"Well, I declare, Juliana"-- (five-and-twenty years ago she used to call her "Jooley," keeping the full name to mark disapproval or displeasure.
Now it was always Juliana, so that Mrs.Moon seemed to be permanently displeased)--"whatever possessed you to make such an exhibition of yourself?
(And will you draw your chair back--you're incommoding the cabinet.) I never saw anything so unsuitable and unbecoming in _my_ life--at this hour of the day too.

Why, you're just like a whirligig out of a pantomime.

If you think you can carry off that kind of thing you're very much mistaken." That did seem to be Miss Quincey's idea--to carry it off; to brazen it out; to sit down and read Browning as if there was nothing at all remarkable in her personal appearance.
"And to choose lilac of all things in the world! You never could stand that shade at the best of times.