"Only think of it,
Priscilla, our silk--
cracked!"
"We will just wait until the styles change," said Miss Priscilla, with
an air of finality. "They won't always wear plaits!"
"And we know all the time that we've really got the dresses, only they
aren't made up!" finished Miss Amelia, in tearful triumph.
So the silk was laid away in two big rolls, and for another year the old
black alpaca gowns trailed across the town's thresholds and down the
aisle of the church on Sunday. Their owners no longer sought shadowed
corners and sunless rooms, however; it was not as if one were
obliged to wear sponged and darned alpacas!
Plaits were "out" next year, and the Heath sisters were among the first
to read it in the fashion notes. Once more on a bright spring morning
Miss Priscilla and Miss Amelia left the house tenderly bearing in their
arms the brown-paper parcels--and once more they returned, the brown
parcels still in their arms. There was an air of indecision about them
this time.
"You see, Amelia, it seemed foolish--almost wicked," Miss Priscilla was
saying, "to put such a lot of that expensive silk into just sleeves."
"I know it," sighed her sister.
"Of course I want the dresses just as much as you do," went on Miss
Priscilla, more confidently; "but when I thought of allowing Mis' Snow
to slash into that beautiful silk and just waste it on those great
balloon sleeves, I--I simply couldn't give my consent!--and 'tisn't as
though we hadn't
got the dresses!"
"No, indeed!" agreed Miss Amelia, lifting her chin.
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