Peggy looked doubtful, but consented, and Jerome went to fetch the widow.
When she entered the room Mrs. Harold and the girls were sorely put to it to keep sober faces, for Minervy had certainly outdone herself; not only Minervy, but her entire brood which followed silently and sheepishly behind her. Can Minervy's "mourning" be described? Upon her head rested a huge felt hat of the "Merry Widow" order, and encircling it was a veil of some sort of stiff material, more like crinoline than crape. There were YARDS of it, and so stiff that it stuck straight out behind her like a horse's tail. Under the brim was a white WIDOW'S ruche. Her waist was a black silk one adorned with cheap embroidery, and a broad belt displayed a silver buckle at least four inches in diameter, ornamented with a huge glass carbuncle at least half the buckle's size. On her own huge feet were a pair of shining patent-leather shoes sporting big gilt buckles, and each child wore PATENT-LEATHER DANCING POMPS.
"Why, Minervy," cried Peggy, really distressed, "How COULD you?"
"Why'm, ain' we jist right? I thought I done got bargains wha' jist nachally mak' dat odder widow 'oman tek a back seat AN' sit down. SHE didn't git no sich style when James up an died," answered Minervy, reproach in her tone and eyes.
"But, Minervy," interposed Mrs. Harold. "That bright red stone in the buckle; how can you consider THAT MOURNING? And your veil shouldn't stick—I mean it ought to hang down properly."
Minervy looked deeply perturbed. Shifting from one patent-leather-shod foot to the other, she answered:
"Well'm, well'm, I dare say you's had more spurrience in dese hyer t'ings 'n I is, but dat ston certain'y did strike ma heart. But ef yo' say 'taint right why, pleas ma'am git a pair o' scissors an' prize it out, tho' I done brought de belt fer de sake ob dat buckle. Well, nemmine. I reckons I kin keep it, an' if I ever marhrys agin it sho will come in handy."
The combined efforts of Mrs. Harold, Peggy and Polly eventually got Minervy passably presentable as to raiment, but there they gave up the obligation.
On the following Sunday the funeral was held with all the ceremony and display dear to the African heart, but "Sis Cynthia, Mammy Lucy and Jerome were too occupied with domestic duties to attend." "I holds masef clar 'bove sich goin's-on," was Mammy's dictum. "When I dies, I 'spects ter be bur'rid quiet an' dignumfied by ma MISTISS, an' no sich crazy goin's on as dem yonder."
Later Minervy and her "nine haid ob chillern" betook themselves into the town of Annapolis where matrimonial opportunities were greater, and, sure enough, before two months were gone by she presented herself to Peggy, smiling and coy, to ask: