Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic

Ten years is a long time -- long enough to change the child into a woman, the little candy merchant into a fine lady. I suppose, therefore, that my young friends will need to be introduced to Miss Redburn. There she sits in the pleasant apartment in Temple Street, where the picture of the mischievous girl still hangs, though it looks very little like the matron at her side, for whom it was taken. She is not beautiful enough to be the heroine of a romance, neither has she done any absurd thing; she has only supported her mother when she had no one else to care for her. But Katy is irresistible if she is not pretty. She still looks as pleasant as a morning in June, and smiles sweetly when any one speaks to her and when she speaks to any one.

I am sorry I cannot inform my young lady friends how Miss Redburn was dressed, or how she proposed to dress, at her birthday party, which was to come off the following week -- what silks, what laces what muslins, and what jewels she was to wear. I can only say that she was dressed very plainly, and that her garments were exceedingly becoming; and that she had steadily resisted the solicitations of sundry French milliners and dressmakers to exceed her usual simplicity at the party -- and I cordially command her example to all young ladies.