Miss Bethia interrupted her again, promptly. "Malvina," she said, firmly, "I have told you before, and I tell you again, that no word disrespectful to Mrs. Tree shall be spoken in this house. There is no need of bringing her into this matter at all; but I should like to know why you call the Festival Procession pagan."
"And ain't it pagan?" cried Mrs. Weight, leaning forward, her hands on her knees. "Ain't you jest told me with your own lips, Bethia Wax, that he asked you, a church-member in reg'lar standin', to strut and stomp as a heathen goddess, in heathen clo'es? Ain't that enough? Hasn't he got all the girls in this village takin' their Mas' best sheets and table-cloths and sewin' of 'em up to make toonics for muses and graces and all sich pagan trollops? Ain't that enough? Do you think sheets is fit and suitable clo'es for church-members? or table-cloths? And 'tain't as if he hadn't ben shown a better path. 'Pindar,' I said, when he come to see about Annie Lizzie, 'you get up an Old Folks' Concert,' I says, 'and I'll be the Goddess of Liberty for ye,' I says. I had that red, white, and blue buntin', you know, that we hired for the Centennial. Some of it was damaged, and the man wouldn't take it back, and it's ben in my attic ever sence; and I thought 'twould be a good way to use it up, and help him out at the same time. Why, Bethia, that man looked at me—why, I believe he's ravin' distracted; he poured out a string o' stuff that hadn't no sense or meanin' in it; and then said, 'Shakespeare,' as if that made it any better. Deacon never would have Shakespeare's works in the house; he said they was real vulgar, and that was enough for me. So he see I was real indignant, and he blinked his eyes and spoke up and said I might be a Roman matron if I was a mind to. But I says, 'No, sir!' I says. 'I am an American lady, and the widder of a sainted man, and I am not goin' travellin' and traipsin' in heathen and publican clo'es, whatever others may do!' and so I come away, and left him flappin' there on the door-steps. He's ravin' crazy, Pindar Hollopeter is; he'd oughter be shut up. And I told Annie Lizzie she shouldn't have anything to do with it in any way, shape, or manner. She's ben bawlin' all day about it, but I tell her I didn't take her out of the street to have her rigged out with wings. If she'd think of her end, I tell her, and how she can aim a pair to walk the golden streets with, it would set her better. Well, I must be goin', Bethia; I only run in jest for a minute. Now I hope you'll take that med'cine reg'lar, and benefit by it. I couldn't answer to Deacon when I meet him in glory if I hadn't done my dooty to them as is neighbors to me, specially when they look as gashly as you do, Bethia; but I'm in hopes we've taken it in time, and you may be spared. Good day!"
The visitor gone, Miss Wax heaved a sigh of relief, and tried to settle to her work again; but it would not do. Her mind had been disturbed, and, as she often said, her profession required calm. The hand must be steady, the nerves tranquil, or the delicate strands would twist and knot; and now her long, slim fingers were trembling, and the silken threads danced before her eyes. "I must give it up for to-day," said Miss Bethia, sadly; and she put away the little table, and took out a clean silk duster.
A parlor must be dusted twice in the day, according to Miss Wax's theory: once in the morning, to remove the night's accumulation of dust, and again toward evening, to take up such particles of the evil thing as had settled during the day on chair or table, book or ornament. The morning task was an anxious one, and apt to be complicated by fears of the coffee's boiling over; but the afternoon dusting was one of the good lady's pleasures, and she took her time over it. She loved to linger over the glass cases, polishing them, admiring the treasures they protected, and recalling the circumstances of their making. It was pleasant to accompany her, as one was sometimes permitted to do, on one of these friendly rounds.
"These pond-lilies," she would say, "were a wedding present to my cousin Cilissa Vinton, deceased. They were admired by some; Cilissa thought they were real, and wished to wear them in her hair. After her lamented death (of spasms), the family returned them to me as a memento. That spray of roses is made of feathers, the breast-feathers of the domestic goose. I never allowed them to be plucked from the living bird, my dear! I used to wear them in my hair; some thought the contrast pretty." And Miss Bethia would sigh gently, and glance at the long mirror, which reflected her tall and angular gentility.
But this afternoon the good lady's thoughts were not reminiscent. As she stood before the rosewood "what-not," lifting each article, wiping it, and replacing it with delicate nicety (I can see them all: the two mandarins, the china baby in the bath-tub,—you could take him out! the whole thing would go into a walnut-shell,—the pink-and-gold Dresden shepherd and shepherdess, the Chinese puzzles, and all the other quaint pleasantnesses), it was of to-day rather than yesterday that Miss Bethia was thinking. Should she—could she—walk in a public procession attired as Minerva? She put aside with an inward shudder Mrs. Weight's characterization of the possible performance. She, Bethia Wax, could not "strut and stomp" if she tried. Her walk was graceful, as she was well aware; in her youth she had been said to glide.
"As a swan o'er the water,
Quahaug's fairy daughter
In majesty maiden doth glide;
May the day Wax and wane
When the sighs of her swain
May waft her to bliss as a bride!"
Homer Hollopeter had written that in her album at a time when she and Pindar were—oh, no! not engaged, certainly not; only very good friends. Homer, she was aware, had regarded her as a sister, had wished—but she never laid it up against Mary; no, indeed! Who could wonder at any one's falling in love with Mary?
And now, after all the years, Pindar had come back; still an elegant man, Miss Wax thought, though nervous, to be sure, sadly nervous. "But perhaps it is his emotions," she said. "No doubt he feels it, coming back after thirty years, and all so changed." And he had pressed her hand, and murmured, "Ye gods!" which was almost profane, Miss Bethia feared,—yet not quite, she hoped; and had asked her to represent Minerva, goddess of wisdom, in the Festival Procession. He was coming this very evening for her answer; what should it be?
Miss Bethia glanced again at the long mirror. The angular, yet not ungraceful, figure, the long, oval face with its delicate features and arched eyebrows, the glossy bands of hair, still jet-black,—the whole reflection was familiar, friendly, not—Miss Wax modestly hoped—not wholly unpleasing. She tried to imagine the figure clad in flowing draperies; there was a rose-colored slip under the spare room spread; sateen always draped prettily; pink was her color, and she could not somehow feel that sheets would be quite—quite what she would wish to be seen in. And—on her head, now! Would a helmet be necessary? There was not such an article in the village, but she presumed with silver paper—and yet, a wreath would be so much more becoming; the feather-work roses, for example! She took them from under their round glass case, and laid them against her hair, then put them back with a sigh. The contrast certainly used to be thought becoming, but somehow—and after all was it suitable? What would Phœbe and Vesta Blyth—what would Mrs. Tree have said?