Aunt Maria did
not consider that her sister-in-law was quite careful enough of her
clothes. "Henry won't always be earning," she often said to Maria.
To-day she had eyed with disapproval Eunice's best black silk
trailing from under her cape, when she entered the sitting-room. She
had come through the cellar.

"Are you going that way, in such a storm, in your best black silk?"
she inquired.

"I haven't any water-proof," replied Eunice, "and I don't see what
else I can do."

"You might wear my old shawl spread out."

"I wouldn't go through the street cutting such a figure," said
Eunice, with one of her occasional bursts of spirit. She was
delighted to go. Nobody knew how this meek, elderly woman loved a
little excitement. There were red spots on her thin cheeks, and she
looked almost as if she had used rouge. Her eyes snapped.

"I should think you would turn your skirt up, anyway," said Aunt
Maria. "You've got your black petticoat on, haven't you?"

"Yes," replied Eunice. "But if you think I am going right through the
Main Street in my petticoat, you are mistaken. Snow won't hurt the
silk any. It's a dry snow, and it will shake right off."

So Eunice, at the side of Aunt Maria, went with her dress kilted
high, and looked as preternaturally slim as her sister-in-law looked
stout. Maria, watching them, thought how funny they were. She herself
was elemental, and they, in their desires and interests, were like
motes floating on the face of the waters. Maria, while she had always
like pretty clothes, had come to a pass wherein she relegated them to
their proper place. She recognized many things as externals which she
had heretofore considered as essentials. She had developed
wonderfully in a few months. As she turned away from the window she
caught a glimpse of Lily Merrill's lovely face in a window of the
opposite house, above a mass of potted geraniums. Lily nodded, and
smiled, and Maria nodded back again. Her heart sank at the idea of
Lily's coming that evening, a sickening jealous dread of the
confidence which she was to make to her was over her, and yet she
said to herself that she had no right to have this dread. She
prepared her supper and ate it, and had hardly cleared away the table
and washed the dishes before Lily came flying across the yard before
the storm-wind. Maria hurried to the door to let her in.

"Your aunt went, didn't she?" said Lily, entering, and shaking the
flakes of snow from her skirts.