This was a miracle in Dole, and Sally was wont to dilate upon the astonishing circumstance, and marvel that Mr. Martin could find the one he wanted among so many all alike. The mere fact of the titles being different did not appeal to Sally.
Above the bookshelves, against a soft harmonious background, were beautiful etchings from the paintings Sidney loved. Millet’s peasants, Burne-Jones’ beautiful women, Meissonier’s cavaliers, Rossetti’s “Beata Beatrix.” Upon the top of the bookshelves were two exquisite marbles, the winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo, and one bronze—the famous wing-footed Mercury, slender, lithe, and seeming ever to sweep on with the messages of the gods.
Vashti sat long there, then she remembered that it was the day of the sewing circle. The meeting was at the house of Mrs. Winder that day.
Vashti rose and left the room; she put on her hat, paused to look at herself in her glass, and smiled to think of how the women would whisper, when her back was turned, about her Boston gown and her modish hat.
Vashti rather liked to amaze her fellow-women. With all her strength of mind there was much femininity about her, and when it came to prodding up other women she was an adept.
As she passed the open study door she paused and looked in where her husband lay, sunk in the unconsciousness of a hypnotic sleep. For a moment she had a great desire to awaken him, but still softened by unwonted tenderness, she refrained from doing so. Vashti liked not only to parade her Boston finery before the sewing circle, but also her husband.
After all, being the minister’s wife in Dole had charms.
“If I had only told him to come for me,” she said regretfully. “I wish he would, at five o’clock. I’ve a mind to wake him up and ask him.” She hesitated. The light slanted in across Sidney’s face, its pallor shone out startlingly.
She turned away and ere long was nearing Mrs. Winder’s. She walked slowly up the path to the front door. Sidney often forgot that it was one of the preacher’s privileges to do this, but Vashti always remembered what was fitting; besides, she knew the window of the sitting-room commanded the little path, and she thought the sewing circle might just as well be edified by her progress from the gate as not.