"That is easily explained.

I haven't much money; I don't know how much it is going to cost me to reach Hartford; so I fixed over a couple of my mother's dresses.

It doesn't look bad, does it ?" "Mercy, no! That wasn't the thought.

It was that somebody had cheated you." The spinster did not ask if the mother lived; the question was inconsequent.

No mother would have sent her daughter into the world with such a wardrobe.