"Well, seeing you have come down on your offer, I'll come up a little on mine. I'll take it for three-fifty." Amarilly considered. "I will, if you'll throw in one of them caps fer my brother." "All right," laughed the proprietor. "I think we'll call it a bargain. See if you can't dig up one of those caps for her, Ben." Without much difficulty Ben produced a cap, and Amarilly hurried home for the surplice. She went down to the Beehive every day during the wedding-window week and feasted her eyes on the beloved gown. She took all the glory of the success of the display to her own credit, and her feelings were very much like those of the writer of a play on a first night. From a wedding to a funeral was the natural evolution of a surplice, but this time it did not appear in its customary role. Instead of adorning a minister, it clad the corpse. Mrs. Hudgers's only son, a scalawag, who had been a constant drain on his mother's small stipend, was taken ill and died, to the discreetly disguised relief of the neighborhood. "I'm agoin' to give Hallie a good funeral," Mrs. Hudgers confided to Amarilly. "I'm agoin' to hev hacks and flowers and singin' If yer St. Mark's man was to hum now, I should like to have him fishyate." "Who will you git?" asked Amarilly interestedly. "I'll hev the preacher from the meetin'-house on the hill, Brother Longgrass." "I wonder," speculated Amarilly, "if he'd like to wear the surplus?" Foremost as the plumes of Henry of Navarre in battle were the surplice and the renting thereof in Amarilly's vision. "I don't expect he could do that," replied Mrs. Hudgers doubtfully. "His church most likely wouldn't stand fer it. Brother Longgrass is real kind if he ain't my sort. He's agoin' to let the boys run the maylodeun down here the night afore the funyral." "Who's agoin' to sing?" "I dunno yit. I left it to the preacher. He said he'd git me a picked choir, whatever that may be." "My! But you'll hev a fine funeral!" exclaimed Amarilly admiringly. "I allers did say that when Hallie got merried, or died, things should be done right. Thar's jest one thing I can't hev." "What's that, Mrs. Hudgers?" "Why, you see, Amarilly, Hallie's clo'es air sort of shabby-like, and when we git him in that shiny new caskit, they air agoin' to show up orful seedy. But I can't afford ter buy him a new suit jest for this onct." "Couldn't you rent a suit?" asked Amarilly, her ruling passion for business still dominating. "No; I jest can't, Amarilly. It's costin' me too much now." "I know it is," sympathized Amarilly, concentrating her mind on the puzzling solution of Hallie's habiliment. "Mrs. Hudgers," she exclaimed suddenly, "why can't you put the surplus on Hallie? You kin slip it on over his suit, and when the funeral's over, and they hev all looked at the corpse, you kin take it offen him."