In her own person, as has already been said, Miss Bethia felt that she could brook no dictation, even from Vesta. Accordingly, as the hour of the meeting approached, she arrayed herself in a trailing robe of black cashmere, with long bands of crape hanging from the shoulders. Examining with anxious care her slender stock of trinkets, she selected a mourning brooch of the size of a small saucer, which displayed under glass an urn and weeping willow in the choicest style of hair jewelry, and two hair bracelets, one a broad, massive band clasped with a miniature, the other a chain of globules not unlike the rockweed bladders that children love to dry and "pop" between their fingers. Hair jewelry survived in Elmerton long after it was forgotten in other places. Miss Wax herself was a skilful worker in it, and might often be seen bending over the curious little round table, from the centre of which radiated numerous fine strands of hair, black, brown, or golden, hanging over the edge and weighted with leaden pellets. To see Miss Bethia's long fingers weaving the strands into braids or chains was a quaint and pleasant sight. Her toilet completed, the good lady surveyed herself earnestly in the oval mirror, gave a gentle sigh, half approval, half regretful reminiscence, and went down to the parlor. Here she seated herself in her favorite chair and her favorite attitude. The chair was an ancient one, of slender and graceful shape; and the attitude--somehow--was a good deal like the chair. Both were as accurate reproductions as might be of a picture that hung over Miss Bethia's head as she sat, the portrait of a handsome young woman with long, black ringlets, arched eyebrows, and dark, expressive eyes. Miss Bethia had been said to resemble this portrait of her great-great-aunt, and the resemblance was one which she was loth to relinquish. Accordingly, she loved to sit under it, in the same chair that the picture showed, leaning one elbow on the same little table, her cheek resting on the same fingers of the same hand,--the index and middle fingers,--while the others curved outward at a graceful angle. When seated thus, somebody was pretty sure to call attention to the resemblance, and not the most ill-natured gossip could grudge Miss Bethia the mild pleasure that beamed in her eyes whenever it was noted. There might be a slight resemblance, she would say modestly. It had been remarked upon, she might say, more than once. The lady was her relative, and likenesses ran strong in her family.