But now it was down, though I remembered seeing it stand there every time I'd dusted ever since Miss Mayhew had come, up till this day. And when I'd told the women all about it, they couldn't recover from looking. They looked so energetic that finally Mis' Toplady pulled out the wardrobe a little mite and peeked behind it.
"I thought mebbe it'd got itself stuck in here," she explains, bringing her head back with a great streak of dust on her cheek—and I didn't take it as any reflection whatever on my housekeeping. I've always believed that there's some furniture that the dust just rises out of, in the night, like cream—and of those the backs of wardrobes are chief.
Then she shoved the wardrobe in place, and the door that I'd fixed at the top with a little wob of newspaper so it would stay shut, all of a sudden swung open, and the other one followed suit. We three stood staring at what was inside. For my wardrobe, that had never had anything in it better than my best black silk, was hung full of pink and blue and rose and white and lavender clothes. Dresses they were, some with little scraps of shining trimming on, and all of them not like anything any of us had ever seen, outside of fashion books—if any.
"My land!" says I, sitting down on the edge of the fresh-made bed—a thing I never do in my right senses.
"Party clothes!" says Mis' Holcomb, kind of awelike. "Ball-gowns," she says it over, to make them sound as grand as they looked.
"Why, mercy me," Mis' Toplady says, standing close up and staring. "She's an actress, that's what she is. Them's stage clothes."
"Actress nothing," I says, "nor they ain't ball dresses—not all anyway. They're just light colors, for afternoon wear, the most of them—but like we don't wear here in this town, 'long of being so durable-minded."
"Have you ever seen her wear any of 'em?" demands Mis' Toplady.
"I can't say I ever have," I says, "but she likely ain't done so because she don't want to do different from us. That," says I, "is the lady of it."