Mis' Holcomb leaned close and looked at the things through her glasses.
"I think she'd ought to wear them here," she says. "I'd dearly love to look at things like that. Nobody ever wore things here like that since the Hewitts went away. We'd all love to see them. We don't see things like that any too often. I s'pose—I s'pose, ladies," says she, hesitating, "I s'pose it wouldn't do for us to look at them any closer up to, would it?"
We knew it wouldn't—not, that is, to the point of touching. But we all came and stood by the wardrobe door and looked as close up to as we durst.
"My," says Mis' Toplady, "how Mis' Sykes would admire to see these. And Mis' Hubbelthwait. And Mis' Sturgis. And Mis' Merriman."
And then she went on, real low:
"Why, ladies," she says, "why couldn't we have an exhibit—a loan exhibit? And put all those clothes on dress-makers' forms in somebody's parlor—"
"And charge admission!" says I. "Instead of a bazaar or a supper or a baking sale—"
"And get each lady that's got them to put up her best dress too," says Mis' Holcomb. "Mis' Sykes has never had a chance to wear her navy-blue velvet in this town once, and she's had it three years. I presume she'd be glad to get a chance to show it off that way."
"And Mis' Sturgis her black silk that she had dressmaker made in the city," says I, "when she went to her relation's funeral. She's never had it on her back but the once—it had too much jet on it for anything but formal—and that once was to the funeral, and then it was so cold in the church she had to keep her coat on over it. She's often told me about it, and she's real bitter about it, for her."