his clothes as in his
personality.

On the other hand, Jennie could not help thinking that Mrs. Irwin's
queerness was to be found almost solely in her clothes. The black alpaca
looked undeniably respectable, especially when it was helped out by a
curious old brooch of goldstone, bordered with flowers in blue and white
and red and green--tiny blossoms of little stones which looked like the
flowers which grow at the snow line on Pike's Peak. Jennie felt that it
must be a cheap affair, but it was decorative, and she wondered where Mrs.
Irwin got it. She guessed it must have a story--a story in which the
stooped, rusty, somber old lady looked like a character drawn to harmonize
with the period just after the war. For the black alpaca dress looked more
like a costume for a masquerade than a present-day garment, and Mrs. Irwin
was so oppressed with doubt as to whether she was presentable, with
knowledge that her dress didn't fit, and with the difficulty of behaving
naturally--like a convict just discharged from prison after a ten years'
term--that she took on a stiffness of deportment quite in keeping with the
idea that she was a female Rip Van Winkle not yet quite awake. But Jennie
had the keenness to see that if Mrs. Irwin could have had an up-to-date
costume she would have become a rather ordinary and not bad-looking old
lady. What Jennie failed to divine was that if Jim could have invested a
hundred dollars in the services of tailors, haberdashers, barbers and
other specialists in personal appearance, and could for this hour or so
have blotted out his record as her father's field-hand, he would have
seemed to her a distinguished-looking young man. Not handsome, of course,
but the sort people look after--and follow.

"Come to dinner," said Mrs. Woodruff, who at this juncture had a hired
girl, but was yoked to the oar nevertheless when it came to turkey and the
other fixings of a Christmas dinner. "It's good enough, what there is of
it, and there's enough of it such as it is--but the dressing in the turkey
would be better for a little more sage!"

The bountiful meal piled mountain high for guest and hired help and family
melted away in a manner to delight the hearts of Mrs. Woodruff and Jennie.
The colonel, in stiff starched shirt, black tie and frock coat, carved
with much empressement, and Jim felt almost for the first time a sense of
the value of manner.

"I had bigger turkeys," said Mrs. Woodruff to Mrs. Irwin, "but