Elizabeth looked grave.
“Cousin Betsey, you were always hard on my brother Clifton.”
Betsey shrugged her shoulders.
“You are harder on him this minute than I am. I don’t suppose he has done anything very bad this time—worse than usual, I mean.”
“Have you heard anything? Did you know he was sent home?” asked Elizabeth in dismay.
“He sent a letter to Ben a spell ago, and I saw it lying round. You needn’t tell him so. If it is as he says, there aint much wrong this time. Here is Hepsey Bean.”
Miss Bean had come to inquire if anything had been heard of the minister, but the cousins were too much occupied in watching the two lads to answer her, and Hepsey’s eyes followed theirs.
“Are not they alike as two peas?” said she. “Not their fixings exactly, I don’t mean—”
Miss Elizabeth laughed, even Miss Betsey smiled, touched with a grim sense of humour as she regarded the lads. Their “fixings” were certainly different. Everything, from the tips of Clifton’s shining boots to the crown of his shining hat, declared him to be a dandy. His collar, necktie, coat, and all the rest, were in the latest fashion—a fashion a sight of which, but for his coming home, the Gershom people might not have been favoured with for a year to come. His compulsory departure from the seat of learning had been delayed while the tailor completed his summer outfit, so that there could be no mistake about his “fixings.”
As for Ben, he was fine also, in a new suit of homespun, which, since it came from the loom, and, indeed, before it went to the loom, had passed through no hands but those of his Aunt Betsey. It was not handsome. The home-made thick grey cloth of the country, which the farmers’ wives of those days took pride in preparing for the winter-wear of their “men folks,” was an article of superior wearing qualities, and handsome in its way. But it was the half-cotton fabric, dingy and napless, considered good enough for summer wear, in which Ben was arrayed. Made as a loose frock and overall to be worn in the hay-field, or following the plough, it was well enough; but made into a tight-fitting Sunday-suit, it was not handsome, certainly. As far as “fixings” were concerned, the cousins were a contrast. Betsey looked and laughed again, but Elizabeth did not laugh. She knew that Cousin Betsey was sensitive where Ben was concerned.