Hester felt that the decision was final and nothing could be gained by argument. Leaving the room, she soon returned with hat and gloves. These last articles she swung in her hands as they went down the walk.
"Hester, when at home we were a little lax about certain customs. Here in Lockport and among strangers, we must be more careful. Put on your gloves before we leave the house. My mother taught me that a lady must finish her toilet before she leaves her home."
She waited until Hester had put on and buttoned the gloves. "It seems a trifle," continued Debby, "but it is trifles which mark the difference between a cultivated and an uncultivated woman."
When the street car took siding at Williams Street to give right of way to the east-bound car, a carriage drew up close to the curb. The coachman was in livery. Hester noticed that at once, for at her home no distinction in dress was made between the man who drove and he who employed him.
Servants in livery were not new to Debby Alden. Her attention was attracted to the sweet-faced woman in the carriage. This woman who was richly gowned was scarcely older than Debby herself; but her hair was white. There was some quality in the face which attracted and held. Perhaps it was the power of self-control. The power to smile sweetly when the person had cause only for tears. This woman was bending from the carriage in conversation with a man and woman on the sidewalk. As the car moved, the nervous horses jerked suddenly. The woman in the carriage turned her head and met Debby Alden's direct glance. Just for a moment, these two women looked into each other's eyes. Then the car moved on; the carriage bowled along. With each woman an impression of the unusual lingered.
Debby really was troubled. The face of the strange woman was as the face of a half-forgotten friend.
"That woman in the carriage made me think of someone," she said to Hester. "But I cannot think who. There was something about the turn of her head and the way she looked up at me that made me think I have met her somewhere."
"I did not see her," said Hester. "I was looking at the coachman. I hope that some day I may have matched horses and a man in livery." Then she turned toward Debby Alden. "Hasn't this been a peculiar day, Auntie. Every one thinks I am someone else, and you think every one is some one you know."
"Every one? You are putting it a trifle too strong, Hester. I have come in contact with a great many people, but I remember but one who made me think of someone else. You exaggerate, Hester."
"I'd really rather call it hyperbole," said Hester. "You are a classical scholar when you use hyperbole and a 'fibber' when you exaggerate."