d around the room in
delight. She was in love with her pretty youthful face.

So she bought the hat--at a bargain, of course. She put it away when it
came home, and visited it surreptitiously, but somehow never had the
courage to confess, or to propose wearing it, though other women of her
age indulged in as much and more gayety. In the spring she bought a new
silk gown, a gray with a kind of lilac tint, and cut off the breadths to
make sure of it.

Mr. Perkins viewed it critically.

"I'm not quite certain, Priscilla, that it is appropriate. And a brown
would give you so much more good wear. It looks too--too youthful."

He never remembered there were fifteen years between himself and
Priscilla.

"I--I think I would change it."

"Oh," with the best accent of regret she could assume, "I have cut off
the breadths and begun to sew them up. It's the spring color. And summer
is coming."

"Uu--um----" with a reluctant nod.

She wore it to a christening and a wedding, but the real delight in it
had to be smothered. And when her husband proposed she should have it
dyed she laid it away.

There were other foolish indulgences. Bows and artificial flowers that
she had put on bonnets and worn in her own room with locked doors, then
pulled them off and laid them away. She was so fond of pretty things,
gay things, the pleasures of life--and she was always relegated to the
prose! Other people wore finery with a serene calmness, and went about
their daily duties, to church, on missions of mercy, and were well
thought of. Where was the sin? Her clothes cost quite as much. Mr.
Perkins was a close manager but not stingy with his wife.

She used to think she would confess to her mother about the dancing, but
she never had. She ought to bring out these "sins of the eye" and lay
them before her husband, but she never found the right moment and the
courage. She had meant to deal them out to the Leverett girls,
especially Electa--but Electa seemed to prosper so amazingly! She _must_
do something with them, and clear up her life, sweep, and garnish before
the summons came. She was getting to be old now, and if she went off
suddenly someone would come in and take possession and scatter her
treasures. Likely as not it would be the Perkinses, for she hadn't made
any will.

Why shouldn't Betty have some of them and go off on her good time. It
wouldn't be housekeeping and spinning and looking after fractious
children. But those evenin