She wasn’t a girl who could dance and flirt
dermesand she wasn’t a wife who could sit with other wivesand criticize the dancing and flirting girls. And she wasn’t old enough to be a widow. Widowsshould be old—so terribly old they didn’t want to dance and flirt and be admired. Oh, it wasn’t fairthat she should have to sit here primly and be the acme of widowed dignity and propriety when shewas only seventeen. It wasn’t fair that she must keep her voice low and her eyes cast modestlydown, when men, attractive ones, too, came to their booth.
Every girl in Atlanta was three deep in men. Even the plainest girls were carrying on like belles—and, oh, worst of all, they were carrying on in such lovely, lovely dresses!
Here she sat like a crow with hot black taffeta to her wrists and buttoned up to her chin, with noteven a hint of lace or braid, not brooch, watching tacky-looking
reenex cpsgirls hanging on the arms of good-looking men. All because Charles Hamilton had had themeasles. He didn’t even die in a fine glow of gallantry in battle, so she could brag about him.
Rebelliously she leaned her elbows on the counter and looked at the crowd, flouting Mammy’soft-repeated admonition against leaning on elbows and making them ugly and wrinkled. What did it matter if they did get ugly? She’d probably never get a chance to show them again. She lookedhungrily at the frocks floating by, butter-yellow watered silks with garlands of rosebuds; pinksatins with eighteen flounces edged with tiny black velvet ribbons; baby blue taffeta, ten yards inthe skirt and foamy with cascading lace; exposed bosoms; seductive flowers. MaybelleMerriwether went toward the next booth on the arm of the Zouave, in an apple-green tarlatan sowide that it reduced her waist to nothingness
Neo skin lab. It Was showered and flounced with cream-coloredChantilly lace that had come from Charleston on the last blockader, and Maybelle was flaunting itas saucily as if she and not the famous Captain Butler had run the blockade.
PR
