Both the Misses James were alike tall, but what was angularity in the uncompromisingly erect figure of Miss Nancy, who had never known a sick day, was slenderness and delicacy in her elder sister. Miss Nancy's rugged face found no redeeming beauty in her eyes, which were gray and cold as the foundation stones of the house, and carried in their depths a perpetual look of rebuke to the world in general, and to her sister in particular; but the irregularity of Miss Lucy's features seemed akin to beauty in the light of her dark-blue eyes, shining with loving kindness,--eyes that despite their owner's years, held a look of singularly childlike innocence, and a sort of timidity that appeals to the chivalry of men. According to Mrs. Doggett, the James' nearest neighbor, for whom spinsterhood in one she did not admire required a just reproof, but in a friend necessitated an explanation and an apology, "Miss Nancy's never had any notice as I ever heerd tell of, but to the best o' my belief, Miss Lucy'd 'a' been married long ago, ef hit hadn't 'a' been fer skeer o' them old thengs,"--the "old thengs" in question being Miss Nancy and her father. "How do you like Pa's overcoat, Nancy?" asked Miss Lucy, opening the great bundle she had laid on the middle star of the sitting-room bed, and holding up the garment. Miss Nancy looked at the neat gray beaver with cold disapproval. "Why'n't you git black?" she demanded: "you wanted a black one, didn't you, Pa?" The old man looked at the coat and then over his steel-rimmed spectacles at his elder daughter whose hand went up to her face in a nervous, defensive movement,--an acquired gesture that told of a life lived under the lash of rebuke. "I taken this one, Pa, because I got it cheap; it was a young man's overcoat, left over from last spring. Jest see how fine quality it is, and Pa, I wisht you'd look at the linin'!" Mr. James fingered the soft nap of the garment, and examined its handsome lining with reluctant eyes. "Yes," he admitted grudgingly, "hit _is_ fine quality. A blind hog will stumble on an acorn sometimes!" Miss Lucy helped him into the coat. "Wall," he grumbled triumphantly, "I knowed thar'd be somethin' wrong. Hit don't fit: I hain't a goin' to torment myse'f squez in sech tight armholes as them is! You'll jest have to take hit back! Go to town one day to git thengs,--go to town next day to swap 'em! I thenk next time you start out to town, you'd better let Nancy--a person with some jedgement, go with you to keep you from actin' like a chicken with hit's head off!"