On one occasion Jessie met me at the street-door when I came home from work, and led me with an air of importance into the sitting-room, where my mother sat in a new dress and a cap with ribbons in it. My mother blushed as I looked at her.
'She would make me do it, Chris,' she said apologetically.
'Now doesn't she look prettier so?' asked Jessie.
There was no denying it; I had never seen my mother look so attractive, and I kissed her and told her so.
'That makes it all right,' cried Jessie, clapping her hands. 'All the time I was persuading her, she said, "What will Chris say?" and, "Will not Chris think it strange?"'
And Jessie pretended that something was wrong with the cap, and spread out a ribbon here and a ribbon there, and fluttered about my mother in the prettiest way, and then fell back to admire her handiwork.
'I want a new nightcap,' growled uncle Bryan, adding with a sarcastic laugh, 'but the ribbons in it must suit my complexion.'
The next night Jessie gravely presented him with a nightcap gaily decorated with ribbons. 'It will become you beautifully,' she said, with a demure look. When he crossed lances with her, he was generally vanquished.
Jessie explained to me the philosophy of all this.
'I like everything about me to look nice,' she said; 'what else are things for? Everybody ought to be nice to everybody. What are people sent into the world for, I should like to know--to make each other comfortable or miserable?'