Mis' Toplady flushed up. "I've got," she said, "that lavender silk dressing gown my nephew sent me from Japan. It's never been out of its box since it come, nine years ago, except when I've took somebody up-chamber to show it to them. Do you think—"
"Of course we'll have it," I said, "and, Mis' Toplady, your wedding-dress that you've saved, with the white raspberry buttons. And there's Mis' Merriman's silk-embroidered long-shawl—oh, ladies," I says, "won't it be nice to see some elegant clothes wore for once here in the village, even if it's only on dressmaker's forms?"
"So be Miss Mayhew'll only let us take hers," says Mis' Holcomb, longing.
We planned the whole thing out, sitting up there till plump six o'clock when the whistle blew, and not a scratch of sweeping done in the chamber yet. The ladies both flew for home then, and I went at the sweeping, being I was too excited to eat anyway, and I planned like lightning the whole time. And I made up my mind to arrange with Miss Mayhew that night.
I'd had my supper and was rocking on the front porch when she came home. The moon was shining up the street, and the maple leaves were all moving pleasant, and their shadows were moving pleasant, too, as if they were independent. Everybody's windows were open, and somewhere down the block some young folks were singing an old-fashioned love-song—I saw Miss Mayhew stand at the gate and listen after she had come inside. Then she came up the walk slow.
"Good evening and glad you're back," said I. "Ain't this a night?"
She stood on the bottom step, looking the moon in the face. The air was sweet with my yellow roses—it was almost as if the moonlight and they were the same color and both sweet-smelling. And her a picture in that yellow frame.
"Oh, it is—it is," she says, and she sighs.
"This," I says, "isn't a night to sigh on."
"No," she says, "it isn't—is it? I won't do it again."