"Oh, may I see? Why, that's just like a part of your babyhood and
childhood come back!"

The two heads bent over the bundle--the girl's with its light hair in
its first putting up, the woman's with its graying hair folded under the
white cap.

"Here"--Mother Bab turned the bundle upside down and fingered the scraps
with that loving way of those who are dreaming of long departed days and
touching a relic of those cherished hours--"this white calico with the
little pink dots was the first dress any one gave me. Grandmother
Hoerner made it for me, all by hand. Funny, wasn't it, the way they used
to put colored dresses on wee babies! See, here are pink calico ones and
white with red figures and a few blue ones. I wore all these when I was
a baby. Then when I grew older these; they are much prettier. This red
delaine I wore to a spelling bee when I was about sixteen and I got a
book for a prize for standing up next to last. This red and black
checked debaige I can see yet. It had an overskirt on it trimmed with
little ruffles. This purple cashmere with the yellow sprigs in it I had
all trimmed with narrow black velvet ribbon. I'll never forget that
dress--I wore it the day I met David's father."

"Oh, you must have looked lovely!"

"He said so." She smiled; her eyes looked beyond Phoebe, back to the
golden days of her youth when Love had come to her to bless and to abide
with her long beyond the tarrying of the spirit in the flesh. "He said I
looked nice. I met him the first time I wore the purple dress. It was at
a corn-husking party at Jerry Grumb's barn. Some man played the fiddle
and we danced."

"Danced!" echoed Phoebe.

"Yes, danced. But just the old-fashioned Virginia reel. We had cider and
apples and cake and pie for our treat and we went home at ten o'clock!
David walked home with me in the moonlight and I guess we liked each
other from the first. We were married the next year, then we both turned
plain."

"Were you ever sorry, Mother Bab?"

"That I married him, or that I turned plain?"

"Yes. Both, I mean."

"No, never sorry once, Phoebe, about either. We were happy together. And
about turning plain, why, I wasn't sorry either."

"But you had to give up Virginia reels and pretty dresses."

"Yes, but I learned there are deeper, more important things than dancing
and wearing pretty dresses."

She looked at Phoebe, but the girl had bowed her head over the dress
bundle and appeared to be thinking.

"