"something like what Mrs. So-and-So is wearing." But homemade dresses
were a different matter.

Norman longed to have her in toilettes that would bring out the full
beauty of her marvelous figure. He, after the manner of the more
intelligent and worldly-wise New York men, had some knowledge of
women's clothes. His sister knew how to dress; Josephine knew how,
though her taste was somewhat too sober to suit Norman--at least to suit
him in Dorothy. He thought out and suggested dresses to Dorothy, and
told her where to get them. Dorothy tried to carry out at home such of
his suggestions as pleased her--for, like all women, she believed she
knew how to dress herself. Her handiwork was creditable. It would have
contented a less exacting and less trained taste than Norman's. It would
have contented him had he not been infatuated with her beauty of face
and form. As it was, the improvement in her appearance only served to
intensify his agitation. He now saw in her not only all that had first
conquered him, but also those unsuspected beauties and graces--and
possibilities of beauty and grace yet more entrancing, were she but
dressed properly.

"You don't begin to appreciate how beautiful you are," said he. It had
ever been one of his rules in dealing with women to feed their physical
vanity sparingly and cautiously, lest it should blaze up into one of
those consuming flames that produce a very frenzy of conceit. But this
rule, like all the others, had gone by the board. He could not conceal
his infatuation from her, not even when he saw that it was turning her
head and making his task harder and harder. "If you would only go over
to New York to several dressmakers whose names I'll give you, I know
you'd get clothes from them that you could touch up into something
uncommon."