"Oh," says Miss Mayhew, all of a sudden. "What a lovely shawl! What you going to put that on?"
"Where?" says we.
"Why this," she says—but still we didn't see, for she didn't have anything but the shawl Mis' Hubbelthwait had worn in over her head. "This Paisley shawl," Miss Mayhew says.
"My land!" says Mis' Hubbelthwait, "I put that on me to go through the cold hall and bring in the kindling, and run out for a panful of chips, and like that."
Miss Mayhew smiled. "You must put that on a figure," she says. "Why, it's beautiful. Look at those colors."
"All faded out," says Mis' Hubbelthwait, and thought Miss Mayhew was making fun of her. But she wasn't. And she insisted on draping it and putting it near the front. Miss Mayhew was nice, but she was queer in some things. I'd upholstered my kitchen rocker with part of my Paisley shawl, and covered the ironing-board under the cloth with the rest of it—and nothing would do but that old chair must be toted up in her room! And yet I'd spent four dollars for a new golden-oak rocker when she'd engaged the rooms.... But me, I urged them to let her do as she pleased with Mis' Hubbelthwait's shawl that morning; because I remembered that what had been the matter in my kitchen the afternoon before was probably still the matter. And moreover, I'd looked when I made the bed, and I see that the picture hadn't been set back on the bureau.
Well, then we began putting up Miss Mayhew's own things—and I tell you they were pretty. There wasn't much to them—little slimpsey soft silk things, made real inexpensive with no lining, and not fussed up at all—but they had an air to them that you can hardly ever get into a dress, no matter how close you follow your paper pattern. She had a pink and a blue and a white and a lavender—and one lovely rose gown that I took and held up before her.
"I'd dearly love to see you in this," says I. "I bet you look like a rose in it—or more so."
Her face, that was usually bright and soft all in one, sort of fell, like a cloud had blown over it.