"Oh, laws, yes, honey, I'll make 'lowance, never you fear."
"And you really think the black dress will do?"
"Jest as sartin as I be that I'm here a ironin' this 'ere pillow-bier. Why, honey, you'll look like a pictur, you will."
"Oh, Dinah, I'm an old woman."
"Well, honey, what if you be? Land sakes, don't I remember when you was the belle of New York city? Lord love ye! Them was days! When 'twas all comin' and goin', hosses a-prancin', house full, and fellers fairly a-tumblin' over each other jest to get a look at ye. Laws, honey, ye was wuth lookin' at in dem days."
"Oh, Dinah, you silly old soul, what nonsense you talk!"
"Well, honey, you know you was de handsomest gal goin'. Now you knows you was," said Dinah, chuckling and shaking her portly sides.
"I suppose I wasn't bad looking," said Mrs. Betsey, laughing in turn; and the color flushed in her delicate, faded cheeks, and her pretty bright eyes grew misty with a thought of all the little triumphs, prides, and regrets of years ago.
To say the truth, Mrs. Betsey, though past the noon-time of attraction, was a very pretty old woman. Her hands were still delicate and white, her skin was of lily fairness, and her hair like fine-spun silver; and she retained still all the nice instincts and habits of the woman who has known herself charming. She still felt the discord of a shade in her ribbons like a false note in music, and was annoyed by the slightest imperfection of her dress, however concealed, to a degree which seemed at times wearisome and irrational to her stronger minded sister.
But Miss Dorcas, who had carried her in her arms, a heart-broken wreck snatched from the waves of a defeated life, bore with her as heroically as we ever can bear with another whose nature is wholly of a different make and texture from our own.