say it is!" quoth Miss Barry, looking at the astonishing hair
while she got out her needles. "Seems to me I should feel as if my hair
never was combed."

"Not if it _was_ combed, would you?" said Gertrude gravely.

"Well, yes; seems to me I should. I allays liked to have my hair
sleeked up as tight as I could get it; and then I knowed there warn't
none of it flyin'. But la! it's a long time since I was young, and
there's new fashions. Is the minister your cousin?"

"Yes. How do you like him?"

"I hain't got accustomed to him yet," said the little old lady,
clicking her needles with a considerate air. "He ain't like Mr.
Hardenburgh, you see; and Mr. Hardenburgh was the minister afore him."

"What was the difference?"

"Well--Mr. Hardenburgh, you could tell he was a minister as fur as you
could see him; he had that look. Now Mr. Masters hain't; he's just like
other folks; only he's more pleasant than most."

"Oh, he is more pleasant, is he?"

"Well, seems to me he is," said the little old lady. "It allays makes
me feel kind o' good when he comes alongside. He's cheerful. Mr.
Hardenburgh _was_ a good man, but he made me afeard of him; he was sort
o' fierce, in the pulpit and out o' the pulpit. Mr. Masters ain't nary
one."

"Do you think he's a good preacher, then?" said Gertrude demurely,
bending over to look at Miss Barry's knitting.

"Well, I do!" said the old lady. "There! I ain't no judge; but I love
to sit and hear him. 'Tain't a bit like a minister, nother, though it's
in church; he just speaks like as I am speakin' to you; but he makes
the Bible kind o' interestin'."

It was very well for Gertrude that Mrs. Carpenter now came to take her
seat on the piazza, and the conversation changed. She had got about as
much as she could bear. And after Mrs. Carpenter came a crowd; Mrs.
Flandin, and Mrs. Mansfield, and Miss Gunn, and all the rest, with
short interval, driving up and unloading and joining the circle on the
piazza; which grew a very wide circle indeed, and at last broke up into
divisions. Gertrude was obliged to suspend operations for a while, and
use her eyes instead of her tongue. Most of the rest were inclined to
do the same; and curious glances went about in every direction, not
missing Miss Masters herself. Some people were absolutely tongue-tied;
others used their opportunity.

"Don't the wind come drefful cold over them flats in winter?" asked one
good lady who had never been at Elmfield bef