There--that's it." To see Peter help a
lady across a muddy street, Holker Morris always said, was a
lesson in all the finer virtues. Sir Walter was a bungler beside
him. But then Miss Felicia could also have passed muster as the
gay gallant's companion.
And just here the Scribe remarks, parenthetically, that there is
nothing that shows a woman's refinement more clearly than the way
she crosses a street.
Miss Felicia, for instance, would no more have soiled the toes of
her shoes in a puddle than a milk-white pussy would have dampened
its feet in the splash of an overturned bowl: a calm survey up and
down; a taking in of the dry and wet spots; a careful gathering up
of her skirts, and over skimmed the slender, willowy old lady with
a one--two--and three--followed by a stamp of her absurd feet and
the shaking out of ruffle and pleat. When a woman strides through
mud without a shiver because she has plenty of dry shoes and good
ones at home, there are other parts of her make-up, inside and
out, that may want a looking after.
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