"'Here,' s'I, then, 'is the comb. Here is Jennie's picture. The pins is in her hair. Take it down an' do it over. There's somethin' to do an' ease her mother about Jennie not lookin' natural.'
"An' with that I marched myself out an' shut the door.
"Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Holcomb was high-eyebrows on the other side of it, an' they come at me like tick lookin' for tock.
"'Well,' s'I, 'it is Jennie's shroud she's wearin'. But I guess we'll hev to bury 'Leven in it to get it underground. I won't tell her.'
"I give 'em to understand as much as I wanted they should know,—not includin' exactly how I met 'Leven. An' we consulted, vague an' emphatic, like women will. There wasn't time to make another one an' do it up an' all. An' anyway, I was bound not to let the poor thing know what she'd done. The others hated to, too—I donno if you'll know how we felt? I donno but mebbe you sense things like that better when you live in a little town.
"'Well said!' Mis' Amanda bursts out after a while, 'I'm reg'lar put to it. I can scare up an excuse, or a meal, or a church entertainment on as short notice as any, but I declare if I ever trumped up a shroud. An' you know an' I know,' she says, 'poor Jennie'd be the livin' last to want to take it off'n the poor girl.'
"'An',' s'I, 'even if I should give her somethin' else to put on in the mornin', an' sly this into the coffin on Jennie, I donno's I'd want to. The shroud,' s'I, ''s been wore.'
"Mis' Holcomb sort o' kippered—some like a shiver.
"'I donno what it is about its bein' wore first,' s'she, 'but I guess it ain't so much what it is as what it ain't. Or sim'lar.'
"An' I knew what she meant. I've noticed that, often.