Certainly she was aware that men took
advantage of girls' weakness--but that was, as in the case of Uncle
Mathew, when they had drunk too much--and it was the fault of the
girls, too, for not looking after themselves. Maggie felt that she
could look after herself anywhere. She was more afraid, by far, of
her Aunt Anne than of any man.
It happened on the very day after that conversation with Mr. Magnus
that Aunt Anne said at luncheon:
"I think, Maggie dear, if you don't mind, that you and I will pay a
call on Mrs. Warlock this afternoon. You have not been there yet.
To-day will be a very good opportunity."
Maggie's mind flew at once to her clothes. She had been with
Caroline Smith to that young lady's dressmaker, a thin and sharp-
faced woman whose black dress gleamed with innumerable pins. Maggie
had been pinched and measured, pulled in here and pulled out there.
Then there had been afternoons when she had been "fitted" under
Caroline's humorous and critical eye. Finally the dress had been
delivered, only two days ago, in a long card-board box; it waited
now for the great occasion.
The great occasion had, in the guise of the Warlock family, surely
arrived.
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