It was sometimes said in the town that if one of the Heath twins
strained her eyes, the other one was obliged at once to put on glasses;
and it is not to be supposed that two sisters whose sympathies were so
delicately attuned would consent to appear clad one in new silk and the
other in old alpaca.
In spite of their early rising that morning, it was quite ten o'clock
before Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia had brought the house into the
state of speckless nicety that would not shame the lustrous things that
were so soon to be sheltered beneath its roof. Not that either of the
ladies expressed this sentiment in words, or even in their thoughts;
they merely went about their work that morning with the reverent joy
that a devoted priestess might feel in making ready a shrine for its
idol. They had to hurry a little to get themselves ready for the eleven
o'clock stage that passed their door; and they were still a little
breathless when they boarded the train at the home station for the city
twenty miles away--the city where were countless yards of shimmering
silk waiting to be bought.
In the city that night at least six clerks went home with an unusual
weariness in their arms, which came from lifting down and displaying
almost their entire stock of black silk.
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