r mother, was brought also and rubbed up with what Eunice
called a "shammy," and the pickles, and preserves, and honey, and cheese
and jellies, and the white raised biscuits and fresh brown bread, and
shredded cabbage and cranberry sauce, with golden butter, and pitchers
of cream, were all arranged according to Eunice's ideas. The turkey was
browning nicely, the vegetables were cooking upon the stove, the odor of
silver-skinned onions pervading the entire house. Eunice was grinding
the coffee, and the clock said it wanted but half an hour of car-time,
when Mrs. Markham finally left the kitchen and proceeded to make
her toilet.

Eunice's had been made some time ago, and the large-sized hoop she wore
had already upset a pail and dragged a griddle from the stove hearth,
greatly to the discomfiture of Mrs. Markham, who did not fancy hoops,
though she wore a small one this afternoon under her clean and
stiffly-starched dress of purple calico. St. Paul would have made her an
exception in his restrictions with regard to women's apparel, for
neither gold nor silver ornaments, nor braided hair, found any tolerance
in her. She followed St. Paul strictly, except at such times as the good
people in the Methodist church at the east end of the village held a
protracted meeting, when she deviated so far from his injunction as to
speak her mind and tell her experience.

She was a good and conscientious woman, practicing what she preached,
and believing more in the inner than the outer adorning; but she looked
very neat this afternoon in her purple calico, with a motherly white
apron tied around her waist, and her soft, silvery hair combed smoothly
back from her forehead and twisted in a knot behind, about the size of a
half dollar. This knot however, was hidden by the headdress which
Melinda had made from bits of black lace and purple ribbon, and which,
though not at all like Aunt Barbara's Boston caps, was still very
respectable, and even tasteful-looking. Almost too tasteful, Mrs.
Markham thought, as she glanced at the tiny artificial flower tucked in
among the bows of ribbon. But Mrs. Markham did not remove the flower,
for it was a daisy, and it made her think of the Daisy who died fourteen
years ago, and who, had she lived till now, would have been
twenty-eight.

"A married woman, most likely, and I might have been grandmother," Mrs.
Markham sighed, and then, as she heard in fancy the patter of little
feet at her side, and saw b