Everything looked sort of fadged up that she had before her own mother died.

I tell you she never had anything like the rig she wore to-day." "What was it ?" asked her mother interestedly, wiping her rasped nose with a moist ball of handkerchief.
"Oh, it was the handsomest brown suit I ever laid my eyes on, with hand-embroidery, and fur, and a big picture hat trimmed with fur and chrysanthemums.

She's an awful pretty little girl anyhow." "She always was pretty," said Mrs.White, dabbing her nose again.
"If Ida don't look out, her step-daughter will beat her in looks," said Lillian.
"I never thought myself that Ida was anything to brag of, anyway," said Mrs.White.She still had a sense of wondering injury that Harry Edgham had preferred Ida to her Lillian.
Lillian was now engaged to be married, but her mother did not feel quite satisfied with the man.

He was employed in a retail clothing establishment in New York, and had only a small salary.

"Foster Simpkins" (that was the young man's name) "ain't really what you ought to have," she often said to Lillian.
But Lillian took it easily.