Miss Nancy, whose Sabbath attire was a change from a soiled brown calico to a similar unattractive clean one, professed to disapprove of this Sunday's dressy toilet, and when her sister came into the kitchen, dressed in a pretty maroon woolen house waist (one of the "remnant" waists), her second-best black woolen skirt, and wearing her watch, with its slender chain, and with the white threads in _her_ hair concealed in a manner similar to Mr. Lindsay's, she raised her voice in sarcastic reproof. "I see you've got on your red sack you thenk you look so purty in. The idy of an old theng like you a wearin' _red_! And I see you've wore a right smart of the gold off your Sunday specs too, a wearin' 'em ever' day. You and him a dressin' up ever' Sunday, like you was a goin' to church, when you know you ain't goin' to do nothin' but set around all day, makes me plumb sick! And I'm jest a gittin' tired of all the piller slips a bein' blacked up with hair dye, on account of two old fools a bein' afraid of bein' thought as old as they are!" Miss Lucy turned a pained, guilty red. The little bottles she kept hidden in her trunk were of recent acquisition, and she had thought their work was as yet her own secret. Knowing it was useless to attempt to defend herself, she put forth a plea for her friend. "Maybe Mr. Lindsay don't color his hair, Nancy,--hit's a mighty pretty brown, and shines jest like Sister Isabinda's used to." "Maybe he don't," derided Miss Nancy: "but you jest tell him for me, when he puts hit on in the dark or before daylight, to take a little more pains, and don't come downstairs with hit smeared on slantways of his mustache, not techin' the roots, and leavin' 'em white on one side, and see what he says!" Miss Lucy did not wait to hear any more, but went quietly back to the sitting-room where Mr. Lindsay sat alone. "I jest know hit's the nicest day for meetin'," she smiled: "ef the road wasn't so rough a body could go! It'll be lonesome for you today, I'm afraid, Mr. Lindsay, with jest us," she went on: "I wish somebody'd come in to keep you company." Mr. Lindsay looked behind him, then moved his chair nearer Miss Lucy's rocker. "I have all the company I want, Miss Lucy," he said in daring tone, "all the company I want in this world is here by me!" Miss Lucy's eyes fell beneath the compelling power of the bright brown ones opposite her, and a warm flush dyed her face. Mr. Lindsay waited smiling for her to speak, but at this moment there came a knock, and Mr. Galvin Brock, newly shaved, so highly collared that the linen cut cruelly into the fat beneath his ears, and wearing a top coat, a gray suit, gaiters, and glossy shoes that all bore the hall-mark of recent purchase, came in.