Although Mrs. Mulrady would have preferred that Mamie should remain
at Sacramento until she could join her, preparatory to a trip to
"the States" and Europe, she yielded to her daughter's desire to
astonish Rough-and-Ready, before she left, with her new wardrobe,
and unfold in the parent nest the delicate and painted wings with
which she was to fly from them forever. "I don't want them to
remember me afterwards in those spotted prints, ma, and like as not
say I never had a decent frock until I went away." There was
something so like the daughter of her mother in this delicate
foresight that the touched and gratified parent kissed her, and
assented. The result was gratifying beyond her expectation. In
that few weeks' sojourn at Sacramento, the young girl seemed to
have adapted and assimilated herself to the latest modes of fashion
with even more than the usual American girl's pliancy and taste.
Equal to all emergencies of style and material, she seemed to
supply, from some hitherto unknown quality she possessed, the grace
and manner peculiar to each. Untrammeled by tradition, education,
or precedent, she had the Western girl's confidence in all things
being possible, which made them so often probable. Mr. Mulrady
looked at his daughter with mingled sentiments of pride and awe.
Was it possible that this delicate creature, so superior to him
that he seemed like a degenerate scion of her remoter race, was his
own flesh and blood? Was she the daughter of her mother, who even
in her remembered youth was never equipped like this? If the
thought brought no pleasure to his simple, loving nature, it at
least spared him the pain of what might have seemed ingratitude in
one more akin to himself. "The fact is, we ain't quite up to her
style," was his explanation and apology. A vague belief that in
another and a better world than this he might approximate and