Mrs Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the more mature and judicious women of those times, and placing the bonnet on her head, turned slowly round, like a draper’s lay-figure, that Mrs Tulliver might miss no point of view.
“I’ve sometimes thought there’s a loop too much o’ ribbon on this left side, sister; what do you think?” said Mrs Pullet.
Mrs Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her head on one side. “Well, I think it’s best as it is; if you meddled with it, sister, you might repent.”
“That’s true,” said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and looking at it contemplatively.
“How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?” said Mrs Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility of getting a humble imitation of this chef-d’œuvre made from a piece of silk she had at home.
Mrs Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then whispered, “Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best bonnet at Garum Church, let the next best be whose it would.”
She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation for returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.
“Ah,” she said at last, “I may never wear it twice, sister; who knows?”
“Don’t talk o’ that sister,” answered Mrs Tulliver. “I hope you’ll have your health this summer.”
“Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we can’t think o’ wearing crape less nor half a year for him.”