ut I guess 'twill do."

Lydia Vesey gave her a kindly look, yet scathing in its certainty of
professional strictures.

"There ain't nobody that ever I see that's anywhere near your figger,"
she said, in the neighborly ruthlessness that was perfectly understood
among them. "But you hand the gound over to me, an' I can fix it."

"Everybody flour their hair," cried Isabel, with the mien of inciting
them deliriously.

"Everybody that's got plates, take 'em out," added Martha, the
administrative, catching the infection and going a step beyond.

"Why, we can borrer every stitch we want," said Lydia Vesey. "Borrer of
the dead an' borrer of the livin'. I know every rag o' clo'es that's
been made in this town, last thirty years. There's enough laid away in
camphire, of them that's gone, to fit out three-four old ladies' homes."

"It'll be like the resurrection," said Ellen Bayliss, with that little
breathless catch in her voice.

"What you mean by that, Ellen?" asked Martha gently.

"I know what she means," said Isabel, while Ellen, the blood running
into her cheeks, looked helplessly as if she wished she had not spoken.
"She means we're goin' to dress ourselves up in the things of them
that's gone, a good many of 'em, an' we can't help takin' on the ways of
folks that wore 'em. We can't anyways help glancin' back an' kinder
formin' ourselves on old folks we've looked up to. Seems if the dead
would walk."

Sometimes people shuddered at Isabel's queer sayings, but at this every
one felt moved in a solemn way. It seemed beautiful to have the dead
walk, so it was in the remembrance of the living.

"Shall we let the men in?" asked Caddie anxiously. "I dunno what they'll
say 'f we don't." Her silent husband was the close partner of her life.
To Marshmead it seemed as if he might as well have been born dumb, but
Caddie never omitted tribute to his great qualities.

"Mercy, yes," said Isabel, "if they'll dress up. Not else. They've got
to be gran'ther Graybeards every one of 'em, or they don't come. You
tell 'em so."

"You going home, aunt Ellen?" came a fresh voice from the doorway. "I've
been staying after school, and I thought maybe you'd be tired and like
me to call for you."

It was Nellie Lake, a vision of youth and sweet unconsciousness. She
stood there in the doorway, hat and parasol in hand, crowned by her
yellow hair, and in the prettiest pose of deprecating grace. Aunt Ellen
smiled at her with loving pride, a