"Why, I don't know what you mean. Of course we can afford it, or
else we shouldn't do it. It would be easy enough for us to say, we
will only spend our labour on making our clothes comfortable: but we
don't choose to stop there. Why do you find fault with us? Does it
seem to you as if we starved ourselves of food in order to make
ourselves fine clothes? Or do you think there is anything wrong in
liking to see the coverings of our bodies beautiful like our bodies
are?--just as a deer's or an otter's skin has been made beautiful
from the first? Come, what is wrong with you?"

I bowed before the storm, and mumbled out some excuse or other. I
must say, I might have known that people who were so fond of
architecture generally, would not be backward in ornamenting
themselves; all the more as the shape of their raiment, apart from
its colour, was both beautiful and reasonable--veiling the form,
without either muffling or caricaturing it.

Clara was soon mollified; and as we drove along toward the wood
before mentioned, she said to Dick -

"I tell you what, Dick: now that kinsman Hammond the Elder has seen
our guest in his queer clothes, I think we ought to find him
something decent to put on for our journey to-morrow: especially
since, if we do not, we shall have to answer all sorts of questions
as to his clothes and where they came from. Besides," she said
slily, "when he is clad in handsome garments he will not be so quick
to blame us for our childishness in wasting our time in making
ourselves look pleasant to each other."