riage and expression. The one thing out
of absolute plumb about Margaret was her little black bonnet. That was
askew. Time had bereft the woman of so much hair that she could fasten
no head-gear with security, especially when the wind blew, and that
morning there was a stiff gale. Margaret's bonnet was cocked over one
eye. Miss Carew noticed it.

"Margaret, your bonnet is crooked," she said.

Margaret straightened her bonnet, but immediately the bonnet veered
again to the side, weighted by a stiff jet aigrette. Miss Carew observed
the careen of the bonnet, realized that it was inevitable, and did not
mention it again. Inwardly she resolved upon the removal of the jet
aigrette later on. Miss Carew was slightly older than Margaret, and
dressed in a style somewhat beyond her age. Jane Carew had been alert
upon the situation of departing youth. She had eschewed gay colors and
extreme cuts, and had her bonnets made to order, because there were no
longer anything but hats in the millinery shop. The milliner in Wheaton,
where Miss Carew lived, had objected, for Jane Carew inspired reverence.

"A bonnet is too old for you. Miss Carew," she said. "Women much older
than you wear hats."

"I trust that I know what is becoming to a woman of my years, thank you.
Miss Waters," Jane had replied, and the milliner had meekly taken her
order.

After Miss Carew had left, the milliner told her girls that she had
never seen a woman so perfectly crazy to look her age as Miss Carew.
"And she a pretty woman, too," said the milliner; "as straight as an
arrer, and slim, and with all that hair, scarcely turned at all."

Miss Carew, with all her haste to assume years, remained a pretty
woman, softly slim, with an abundance of dark hair, showing little gray.
Sometimes Jane reflected, uneasily, that it ought at her time of life to
be entirely gray. She hoped nobody would suspect her of dyeing it. She
wore it parted in the middle, folded back smoothly, and braided in
a compact mass on the top of her head. The style of her clothes was
slightly behind the fashion, just enough to suggest conservatism and
age. She carried a little silver-bound bag in one nicely gloved hand;
with the other she held daintily out of the dust of the platform her
dress-skirt. A glimpse of a silk frilled petticoat, of slender feet, and
ankles delicately slim, was visible before the onslaught of the wind.
Jane Carew made no futile effort to keep her skirts down before the