For, as she talked, the points of a dozen pins projected from between her teeth, where she held them for convenience. She still wore close to her side the self-same little brown velvet cushion, or it looked like the same one, which had always astonished Ernest by its capacity. Though it was hardly an inch thick, Miss Chatterwits had a habit of running into its smooth surface long darning needles and shawl pins, as well as fine needles and pins. What became of them was always a matter of deep conjecture to Ernest, for they were sometimes embedded until neither head nor eyes could be seen. It seemed as if they must have pierced Miss Chatterwits' bony waist. Could she possibly be so thin as not to have any flesh to feel the pricks? Bones, of course, have no feeling, used to think Ernest, watching with a kind of fascination each motion of Miss Chatterwits' hand, as she thrust half a dozen long pins into the unresisting cushion. On this important day when Miss Theodora began to feel a change of heart toward Eugenie, she sat down to help Miss Chatterwits with her work. "There's a morning paper," said the seamstress. "Tom Fetchum handed it to me on his way down town; said he had read it all but the deaths and marriages, which he knew I'd like to see. I ain't had time to look at it yet, so you might read them to me, Miss Theodora." Miss Theodora, putting on her glasses, turned to the appointed place. "Not a soul I know among those deaths! I'm disappointed," said Miss Chatterwits, after Miss Theodora had read the list. "Why, what is it?" she added; for Ernest's aunt was looking up with a curiously dazed expression, as she handed the paper to Miss Chatterwits, and pointed to a brief notice: "KURTZ--DIGBY.--At Troy, N. Y., on the 24th inst., by Rev. John Brown, Eugenie, daughter of Simon Kurtz of Boston, to Ralph, son of the late Stuart Digby of the same city." "Well, I never!" said Miss Chatterwits. "An elopement, I do believe! I'm glad I'm most through this skirt, so's I can run over to Mrs. Fetchum's and tell her. I guess she didn't read the paper very carefully this morning. If she'd seen it she'd 'a' been over here to find out how we took it. It's always safe to read the papers. "Well, how do you feel, Miss Theodora?" she asked at last. But Miss Theodora never told any one exactly how she felt when she heard of the strange ending of Ernest's love affair. To Ernest, of course, she gave a full measure of sympathy; and she was almost sorry that, as things had turned out, he would never know that she had made up her mind to make Eugenie's acquaintance. Since she had, though for only a brief time, almost changed her point of view, she felt herself to be hypocritical in receiving his praise for her acumen: "You knew better than I what she was like." Kate was indignant at her brother's treachery.