"
What Sam Kinnaird felt or thought during this speech, which
everyone in the church must have heard, I know not. Gossip had it
that he changed colour. We wretched occupants of the King pew
were concerned only with our own outraged feelings.
"And there's Melita Ross," went on Peg. "She's got the same
bonnet on she had last time I was in Carlisle church six years
ago. Some folks has the knack of making things last. But look at
the style Mrs. Elmer Brewer wears, will yez? Yez wouldn't think
her mother died in the poor-house, would yez, now?"
Poor Mrs. Brewer! From the tip of her smart kid shoes to the
dainty cluster of ostrich tips in her bonnet--she was most
immaculately and handsomely arrayed; but I venture to think she
could have taken small pleasure in her fashionable attire that
evening. Some of the unregenerate, including Dan, were shaking
with suppressed laughter, but most of the people looked as if they
were afraid to smile, lest their turn should come next.
"There's old Stephen Grant coming in," exclaimed Peg viciously,
shaking her floury fist at him, "and looking as if butter wouldn't
melt in his mouth. He may be an elder, but he's a scoundrel just
the same. He set fire to his house to get the insurance and then
blamed ME for doing it.
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