But Vesta did not think well even of this, and Miss Wax reluctantly abandoned the plan of official mourning, though determined to show her respect in her own way as regarded her own person. She was a very tall woman, with a figure which, in youth, had been called willowy, and was now unkindly termed scraggy. She had been something of a beauty, and there was a note of the pathetic in her ringlets and the few girlish trinkets she habitually wore,--a coral necklace, which at sixteen had set off admirably the whiteness of her neck, but which at fifty did not harmonize so well with the prevailing sallow tint; a blue enamel locket on a slender gold chain, etc. She was very fond of pink, and could never forget, poor lady, that Pindar Hollopeter had once called her a lily dressed in rose-leaves. But, though a trifle fantastic, Miss Bethia was as good a soul as ever wore prunella shoes, and her desire to do honor to Mrs. Tree's memory was genuine and earnest. Her soul yearned for the black bombazine hangings, but she was loyal to Vesta's expressed wish, and contented herself with removing certain rose-colored scarfs and sofa-pillows, which on ordinary occasions of entertainment were the delight of her eyes. She had gathered all the white flowers she could find, and had arranged a kind of trophy of silver coffee-spoons on the mantelpiece, surrounding a black velvet band, on which was worked in silver tinsel the inscription: "HER WE HONOR." Miss Bethia had meant to have a photograph of Mrs. Tree in the centre of this sombre glory, but no photograph was to be had. Mrs. Tree had stoutly refused to be photographed, or to have her portrait painted in her later years. "Folderol!" she used to say, when urged by loving friends or relatives. "When I go, I'm going, all there is of me. I shall leave my gowns, because they are good satin, but I'm not going to leave my old rags, nor the likeness of old rags. Cat's foot! don't talk to me!" So, except the miniature which was Vesta Strong's choicest treasure, the portrait of the brilliant, flashing little beauty whom Ethan Tree named the Pocket Venus when first he saw her, and whom he vowed then and there to woo and win, there was no portrait of Mrs. Tree; but Miss Wax put a cluster of immortelles above the inscription, and hoped it would "convey the idea."