A party without an
especially pretty dress didn't amount to much; she couldn't help that;
it did count with everybody, and it made a difference. She would like,
undoubtedly, a "pretty part" in these tableaux; but there was more in
Leslie Goldthwaite, even without touching upon the deep things, than all
this. _Only_ a pretty part did not quite satisfy: she had capacity for
something more. In spite of the lovely Moorish costume to be contrived
out of blue silk and white muslin, and to contrast so picturesquely with
Jeannie's crimson, and the soft, snowy drapery of Elinor, she would have
been half willing to be the "discreet Kadiga" instead; for the old woman
had really to look _something_ as well as _somehow_, and there was a
spirit and a fun in that.
The pros and cons and possibilities were working themselves gradually
clear to her thoughts, as she sat and listened, with external attention
in the beginning, to Sin Saxon's chatter. Ideas about the adaptation of
her dress-material, and the character she could bring out of, or get
into, her part, mingled themselves together; and Irving's delicious old
legend that she had read hundreds of times, entranced, as a child,
repeated itself in snatches to her recollection.
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