h; taking little mincing steps as she
tried to run after him. "You won't mention it? You won't speak of it to
any one, or say I--I"--

"No!" he called back,--"no, of course not."

"Not even to your aunt Ruth would be best!" But he did not hear her, and
Miss Deborah went back to the house, annoyed at Gifford, because of her
own indiscretion.

Miss Ruth had gone to her own bedroom, and some time after Miss Deborah
had disappeared in hers, the younger sister emerged, ready to go to Mr.
Denner's.

Miss Ruth had dressed with great care, yet with a proper sense of
fitness, considering the occasion. She wore a soft, old-fashioned lawn
with small bunches of purple flowers scattered over it, and gathered very
full about the waist. But, before the swinging mirror of her high bureau,
she thought it looked too light and bright for so sad a visit, and so
trotted up-stairs to the garret, and, standing on tiptoe by a great chest
of drawers, opened one with much care, that the brass rings might not
clatter on the oval plates under them, and disturb Miss Deborah. The
drawer was sweet with lavender and sweet clover, and, as she lifted from
its wrappings of silvered paper a fine black lace shawl, some pale,
brittle rose-leaves fell out upon the floor. That shawl, thrown about her
shoulders, subdued her dress, she thought; and the wide-brimmed black hat
of fine Neapolitan straw, tied with soft black ribbons beneath her little
round chin, completed the look of half mourning.

Miss Deborah answered her sister's knock at her bedroom door in person.
She was not dressed to make calls, for she wore a short gown over her red
flannel petticoat, and on her feet were large and comfortable list
slippers. Miss Deborah's eyes were red, and she sniffed once,
suspiciously.

"Why, Ruth Woodhouse!" she cried. "Have you no sense? Don't, for pity's
sake, dress as though you had gone into mourning for the man, when he's
alive. And it is very forward of you, too, for if either of us did it
(being such old friends), it should be I, for I am nearer his age."

But Miss Ruth did not stop for discussion. "Are you not going?" she said.

"No," Miss Deborah answered, "we'd better go to-morrow. You might just
inquire of Mary, this afternoon, but we will call to-morrow. It is more
becoming to put it off as long as possible."

Miss Ruth had her own views, and she consented with but slight demur, and
left Miss Deborah to spend the rest of the afternoon in a big