She stood under the columns of the front porch, a meagre little figure of a woman dressed with severe and immaculate cheapness in a purple calico wrapper, with a checked gingham apron tied in a prim bow at her back. Her hair was very smooth. She was New England austerity and conservatism embodied. She was terrifying, although it would have puzzled anybody to have told why. Certain it was that no man would have had the temerity to contest her authority as she stood there. Henry waited near the gate. "Where are you going?" asked Sylvia again. "Down street," replied Henry. "Whereabouts down street?" Henry said again, with a meek doggedness, "Down street." "Come here," said Sylvia. Henry walked slowly towards her, between the rows of box. He was about three feet away when she spoke again. "Where are you going?" said she. "Down street." Sylvia looked at Henry, and he trembled inwardly. Had she any suspicion? When she spoke an immense relief overspread him. "I wish you'd go into the drug store and get me a quarter of a pound of peppermints," said she. Then Henry knew that he had the best of it. Sylvia possessed what she considered an almost guilty weakness for peppermints. She never bought them herself, or asked him to buy them, without feeling humiliated. Her austere and dictatorial manner vanished at the moment she preferred the request for peppermints. "Of course I'll get them," said Henry, with enthusiasm. He mentally resolved upon a pound instead of a quarter. "I don't feel quite right in my stomach, and I think they're good for me," said Sylvia, still abjectly. Then she turned and went into the house. Henry started afresh. He felt renewed compunction at his deceit as he went on. It seemed hard to go against the wishes of that poor, little, narrow-chested woman who had had so little in life that a quarter of a pound of peppermints seemed too much for her to desire.