tence o’t, . . . But I think it will be wiser of ’ee to put your best side outward’, she added.
‘Very well; I suppose you know best’, replied Tess with calm abandonment.
And to please her parent the girl put herself quite in Joan’s hands, saying serenely—‘Do what you like with me, mother.’
Mrs. Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability. First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess’s hair with such thoroughness that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as at other times. She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual. Then she put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the club-walking, the airy fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged coiffure, imparted to her developing figure an amplitude which belied her age, and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when she was not much more than a child.
‘I declare there’s a hole in my stocking-heel!’ said Tess,
‘Never mind holes in your stockings—they don’t speak! When I was a maid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha’ found me in heels.’
90
