To the sensible query, Mrs. Heth, lightening, replied: "Of course, the gray crêpe-de-chine."
"I think so, too. Only there's a rip at the bottom. I'm sure Flora hasn't touched it since Mr. Avery put his large foot straight through it."
Having turned from the window, Carlisle yawned and glanced at the clock. The two ladies conversed desultorily of draped effects, charmeuse, and why Mattie Allen imagined that she could wear pink. Mrs. Heth ran on through the "Post." Carlisle put up "Pickwick," by Dickens, sticking in a box of safety matches to keep the place. Then she examined herself in the mirror over the mantel, and became intensely interested in a tiny redness over her left eyebrow. She thought that rubbing in a little powder, and then rubbing it right off, would help the redness, and it did.
"I asked Mattie why she said such long prayers in the mornings. That was what made me late for breakfast. Her feelings were quite hurt. Isn't her devoutness quaint, though?"
"She uses my house," murmured Mrs. Heth, "like a hotel. One would think it might occur to her that if she must mummer like a deacon she ought to get up--"
She broke off, her wandering eye having just then fallen upon the Arraignment.
"She didn't like our packing her off right after breakfast a bit either.... I'm devoted to her," said Carlisle, gently rubbing off the powder, "but there's no denying there's a great deal of the cat in Mats."
"Hmph!... Why, this is outrageous! I never read such a thing!"
"What is it?" said the daughter, not turning, clearly not interested.
"Here's a man saying he visited the Works with the Labor Commissioner, and that conditions there are homicidal! I never! Mmm-m-m. Here! 'I speak particularly of the Heth Cheroot Works, but all four stand almost equally as burning blots upon the conscience of this community'--"