<div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/thumb/8/8f/Marguerite_Tuerny_07.jpg/600px-Marguerite_Tuerny_07.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Marguerite Tuerny<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 3, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Early Evening<br/><strong>Location:</strong>The Golden Mare<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Harley,  Maybelle Greene, Open<br/><hr/>After her one brief reply, Marguerite had studiously ignored the uninvited and unwelcome interloper as she focused on her table-companions.  The man's words meant nothing, and they barely registered as she watched first Ms. Greene, and then Harley.  When the man refused to leave, the situation grew quite awkward, and she wondered if she would have to be more explicit in dismissing him.<br/><br/>All the while a few things nagged at her.  One was the girl across the room - or rather her dress.  Marguerite knew quality when she saw it, and she envied the girl that dress.  There was a time, and not so long ago, when she discarded dresses like that after a single wearing.  Now she was reduced to wearing a respectable, serviceable garment handed down from a dead girl.  A dress that barely fit, especially across her wider dimensions.<br/><br/>The lovely blonde girl was on her way over, and Marguerite would have been happy to meet her, to build a friendship with someone with which she suspected she might have much in common.  Only the girl wasn't on her way over to socialize.  The curl of her lip as she appraised Marguerite, and especially her dress, was proof enough of that.<br/><br/>The blonde girl's primary focus was obviously the rather dim Confederate Officer that somehow failed to realize he was encroaching in areas he wasn't welcome.  And that brought Rita to the other thing nagging her thoughts.  The gentleman himself.  She refused to acknowledge him with another glance, but she was sure she had...  Her eyes widened as she suddenly remembered! (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=167460.msg8152780#msg8152780)  She'd only been sixteen at the time, and he really hadn't noticed her and her rail thin, ganky-girlish figure, but they had met before, back at the Debutante Cotillion in Richmond.<br/><br/>She couldn't decide whether to be amused or even more insulted as the irony of the situation unfolded.  She'd been so upset that he had ignored her on their last meeting, and now... Now she decided she was even more upset that he wasn't ignoring her.<br/><br/>She'd really stopped listening to him, instead watching Harley for the most part, with suitable if not over-lavish attention to Maybelle.  She was struggling to come up with a conversation starter - something not entirely awkward or too patently contrived - when the sharp crack of the slap and the metallic crash of the teapot finally forced her attention away from the table.<br/><br/><strong>"I hope that wasn't a good teapot."</strong>She offered with casual observation, totally ignoring the man and his insults.  The teapot looked serviceable rather than precious - pewter most likely.  Still, the comment served to break the tension.  At least her own.<br/><br/>She met the clear green eyes of the blonde beauty, the insult to her apparel dismissed with only a tiny inward wince.  She wished the jab didn't bother her, and she sincerely hoped she covered the fact that it did.<strong>"It's not the dress that makes the lady."</strong>Marguerite replied after what was she was sure was an imperceptible pause. She didn't elaborate, but her manner clearly conveyed the ancillary thought that while Marguerite might be under-dressed, perhaps Ginny was wearing too much dress for a girl of her quality.<br/>