'Dear Sackalive!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt when she extracted the garment from the lavender in which it had lain, like a corpse in balm, for some five-and-twenty years, 'I was a fool when I last put you on; and I won't fit myself out in you again for the same purpose, unless I am driven to it by desperate circumstances.'
Unable to make the body meet, she had thrown a smart red coat over it; and having engaged a boy to row her to Red Hall, sat in the stern, with her skirt pinned over her head, as though the upper part of her person were enveloped in a camera lucida; in which she was viewing in miniature the movements of the outer world. On reaching Red Hall she had thrown off the scarlet, and presented her back pleadingly to Mrs. Sharland.
'I ought not to have done it, but I did,' said she in a tone of confidence. 'I mean I oughtn't to have put this gown on, last time I wore it,' she explained when Mrs. Sharland inquired her meaning. 'It was thus it came about: I was intimate with the sister of Moses De Witt, and one Mersea fair I went over to the merrymakings, and she inwited me to take a mouthful with her and her brother on board the Pandora. I went, and I liked the looks of the wessel, and of Moses, so I said to him, "You seem wery comfortable here, and I think I could make myself comfortable here too. So, if you are noways unobjectionable, I think I will stay." And I did. I put on my silk gown, and was married to Moses, in spite of all my parents said, and I turned the sister of De Witt out and took her place.'
Mrs. De Witt felt great restraint in the silk gown. Her arms were like wings growing out of her shoulderblades. She was not altogether satisfied that the hooks would hold, and therefore carried to church with her the military coat, over her arm. She wore her hair elaborately frizzled. She had done it with the stove poker, and had worn it for some days in curl-papers. Over this was a broad white chip hat, tied under her chin with skyblue ribands, and she had inserted a sprig of forget-me-nots inside the frizzle of hair over her forehead. 'Bless my soul,' she said to herself, 'the boys will go stark staring mad of love at the sight of me. I look like a pretty miss of fifteen—I do, by Cock!'
Mrs. De Witt succeeded in bringing her party before the altar, at which still sat the sweep, deaf to the feeble expostulations of the curate, which he had listened to with one eye closed and his red tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
Mr. Rabbit was obliged to content himself with a protest, and vest himself hastily for the function.
'Look here,' said Mrs. De Witt, who took on herself the office of master of the ceremonies: 'I am not going to be trodden on and crumpled. Stand back, good people; stand back, you parcel of unmannerly cubs! Let me get where I can keep the boys in order and see that everything gives satisfaction. I have been married; I ought to know all the ways and workings of it, and I do.'
She thrust her way to the pulpit, ascended the stair, and installed herself therein.
'Oh, my eye!' whispered the boys in the gallery. 'The old lady is busted all down her back!'
'What is that?' asked Mrs. De Witt in dismay. She put her hands behind her. The observation of the boys was just. Her efforts to clear a way had been attended with ruin to the fastenings of her dress, and had brought back her arms to their normal position at the expense of hooks-and-eyes.