Another had taken George’s place in Company R, and both the Widow Simms and Susan Simms shed tears of natural pride when they read that _John_ was the favored one, and bore the title of Lieutenant. It more than half atoned for his long absence to the young wife, who, greatly to her mother-in-law’s disgust, was made the happy possessor of a set of furs bought with a part of the new lieutenant’s increased wages. “Better lay by for a wet day; but easy come, easy go. They will never be worth a cent. Tain’t like them Ruggleses to save, and to think of the silly critter’s comin’ round in the storm just to show ’em, late on Saturday night; I’m glad I wan’t to hum,” was the widow’s muttered comment, as on the Sunday following the receipt of the furs she pinned around her high, square shoulders, the ten years’ old blanket shawl, and tying round her neck the faded tippet of even greater age, started for church, determining not to notice or speak to the extravagant Susan, if she appeared, as she was sure to do, in her new finery. This was hardly the right kind of spirit for the widow to take to church, but hers was a peculiar nature, and the grace which would have sufficed to make Annie Graham an angel, would hardly have kept her from boiling over at the most trivial matter. This the widow felt, and it made her more distrustful of herself, more careful to keep down the first approaches of her besetting sin. But the furs had seriously disturbed her, particularly as they were said to have cost $35—“more than she had spent on her mortal body in half-a-dozen years,” she thought, as, with her well-worn Prayer Book in hand, and a pair of Eli’s darned, blue socks upon her feet to keep them from the snow which had fallen the night before, she walked rapidly on in the direction of St. Luke’s. There was an unusual stir about the doors, a crowd of eagerly talking people, and conspicuous among them was Susan, looking so pretty in her neatly fitting collar, and holding her little muff so gracefully that the widow began to relent at once, and to feel a kind of pride that “John’s wife was as genteel lookin’ as the next one, if she did come of them shiftless Ruggleses,” but inasmuch as it was Sunday, she shouldn’t flatter Susan by speaking of the furs; but the first chance she got on a week day she’d tell her “she was glad she got ’em, if they didn’t make her vain; though I know they will,” she added; “it’s Ruggles natur’ and she’s standin’ out there now, just to show ’em to the folks in the street goin’ to the Methodis’ meetin’.”