What if the audience hissed her?
Audiences, as she well knew, were not slow to express their likes and dislikes--and especially their dislikes--in the most unmistakeable fashion.
The difficulty of her dress had been overcome.

Palmer was shrewd.

He had an eye for contrast.

He would have no finery and fallals, he said.
"Your songs are simple, so must your gown be.

If the people take to you in the one they will in t'other." So Lavinia made her appearance in a plain dress, apron, mob cap, and of course prodigious hoops.