The little woman in the timid gray bonnet clapped her hands and tittered like a schoolgirl.
"Oh, Walter, I can't believe we're really going to leave Ypsilanti for a while. Oh, but you've earned it after thirty years of being a preacher."
"Hush. Don't let me hear you say the awful word," said the little old man in the little black hat and the close-fitting black bib. "I'm so tired of it, Sally, I don't want anybody on the train to know it."
"They can't help guessing it, with your collar buttoned behind."
And then the amazing minister actually dared to say, "Here's where I change it around." What's more, he actually did it. Actually took off his collar and buttoned it to the front. The old carriage seemed almost to rock with the earthquake of the deed.
"Why, Walter Temple!" his wife exclaimed. "What would they say in Ypsilanti?"
"They'll never know," he answered, defiantly.
"But your bib?" she said.
"I've thought of that, too," he cried, as he whipped it off and stuffed it into a handbag. "Look, what I've bought." And he dangled before her startled eyes a long affair which the sudden light from a passing lamppost revealed to be nothing less than a flaring red tie.
The little old lady touched it to make sure she was not dreaming it. Then, omitting further parley with fate, she snatched it away, put it round his neck, and, since her arms were embracing him, kissed him twice before she knotted the ribbon into a flaming bow. She sat back and regarded the vision a moment, then flung her arms around him and hugged him till he gasped: