Elmira in her party gown looked like a double white flower herself.
As for Jerome, he felt awkwardly self-conscious in his new clothes, but bore himself so proudly as to conceal it.

It requires genuine valor to overcome new clothes, when one seldom has them.

They become, under such circumstances, more than clothes--they are at least skin-deep.

However, Jerome had that valor.

He had bought a suit of fine blue cloth, and a vest of flowered white satin like a bridegroom's.