, "take this broom an' sweep, an' it might as well be
done to-night as any time. Of course you 'ain't got your spring
cleanin' done, none of it, Ann?"

"No," replied Mrs. Edwards; "I was goin' to begin next week."

"Well," said Paulina Maria, "if this house has got to be all cleaned,
an' cookin' done, in time for the funeral, somebody's got to work. I
s'pose you expect some out-of-town folks, Ann?"

"I dare say some 'll come from the West Corners. I thought I wouldn't
try to get word to Westbrook, it's so far; but mebbe I'd send to
Granby--there's some there that might come."

"Well," said Paulina Maria, "I shouldn't be surprised if as many as a
dozen came, an' supper 'll have to be got for 'em. What are you goin'
to do about black, Ann?"

"I thought mebbe I could borrow a black bonnet an' a veil. I guess my
black bombazine dress will do to wear."

"Mis' Whitby had a new one when her mother died, an' didn't use her
mother's old one. I don't believe but what you can borrow that," said
Paulina Maria. She was moving about the kitchen, doing this and that,
waiting for no commands or requests. Jerome and Elmira kept well back
out of her way, although she had not half the fierce impetus that
their mother sometimes had when hitching about in her chair. Paulina
Maria, in her limited field of action, had the quick and unswerving
decision of a general, and people marshalled themselves at her nod,
whether they would or no. She was an example of the insistence of a
type. The prevailing traits of the village women were all intensified
and fairly dominant in her. They kept their houses clean, but she
kept hers like a temple for the footsteps of divinity. Marvellous
tales were told of Paulina Maria's exceeding neatness. It was known
for a fact that the boards of her floors were so arranged that they
could be lifted from their places and cleaned on their under as well
as upper sides. Could Paulina Maria have cleaned the inner as well as
the outer surface of her own skin she would doubtless have been
better satisfied. As it was, the colorless texture of her thin face
and hands, through which the working of her delicate jaws and muscles
could be plainly seen, gave an impression of extreme purity and
cleanliness. "Paulina Maria looks as ef she'd been put to soak in
rain-water overnight," Simon Basset said once, after she had gone out
of the store. Everybody called her Paulina Maria--never Mrs. Judd,
nor Mrs. Adoniram Judd.

The v