The word "trousseau" can be spoken in a woman's presence for many years with no effect, but it is an awful shock when she first _really_ hears it. I felt queer all the afternoon as I packed those trunks for the five o'clock train. Yes, the word "trousseau" ought to have a definite surname after it always, and that's why my loyalty dragged poor Mr. Carter out into the light of my conscience. The thinking of him had a strange effect on me. I had laid out the dream in dark grey-blue cloth, tailored almost beyond endurance, to wear in the train going home, and had thrown the old black silk bag across the chair to give to the hotel maid, but the decision of the session between conscience and loyalty made me pack the precious blue wonder and put on once more the black rags of remembrance in a kind of panic of respect. I would lots rather have bought poor Mr. Carter the monument I have been planning for months (to keep up conversation with Aunt Adeline) than wear that dress again. I felt conscience reprove me once more with loyalty looking on in disapproval as I buttoned the old thing up for the last time, because I really ought to have stayed a day longer to buy that monument, but--to tell the truth I wanted to see Billy so desperately that his "sleep-place" above my heart hurt as if it might have prickly heat break out at any minute. So I hurried and stuffed the grey-blue darling in the top tray, lapped the old black silk around my waist and belted it in with a black belt off a new green linen I had bought for morning walks--down to the butcher's in the High Street, I suppose. That is about the only morning dissipation in Hillsboro that I can think of, and it all depends on whom you meet, how much of a dissipation it is. The next thing that happens after you have done a noble deed is, you either regard it as a reward of virtue or as a punishment for having been foolish. I felt both ways when Judge Wade came down the platform at St. Pancras, looking so much grander than any other man in sight that I don't see how they ever stand him. At that minute the noble black-silk deed felt foolish, but at the next minute I was glad I had done it. It is nice to watch for a person to catch sight of you if you feel sure how they are going to take it, and somehow in this case I felt sure. I was not disappointed, for his smile broke his face up into a joy-laugh. Off came his hat instantly so I could catch a glimpse of the fascinating frost over his temples, and with a positive sigh of pleasure he got into the same carriage and took a seat beside me. I turned with an echo smile all over me, when suddenly his face became grave and considerate, and he looked at me as all the people in Hillsboro have been doing ever since poor Mr. Carter's funeral.