Other Peoples Business | Page 2

till I get used to it."
"Maybe 'twould help your eye-sight if you was the one getting
poisoned," Joel returned sarcastically in the querulous tones of the
confirmed invalid. "I've 'suffered the pangs of three several deaths,' as
Shakespeare says, because you left the door part way open the last time
you went to the 'cyclopedia." For twenty years Joel had been an
omnivorous reader, and his speech bristled with quotations gathered
from his favorite volumes, and generally tagged with the author's name.
The quotations were not always apt, but they helped to confirm the
village of Clematis in the conviction that Joel Dale was an intellectual
man.
By the time Persis had groped her way to the bed, she was sufficiently
accustomed to the dim light to be able to distinguish her brother's
restless eyes gleaming feverishly in the pallid blur of his face. "What
do you want now, Joel?" she asked, with the mechanical gentleness of
overtaxed patience.
"Persis, there's a text o' Scripture that's weighing on my mind. I can't
exactly place it, and I've got to know the context before I can figure out

its meaning. 'Be not righteous over-much, neither make thyself
over-wise. Why shouldst thou destroy thyself?' That's the way it runs,
as near as I can remember. Now if righteousness is a good thing and
wisdom too, why on earth--"
"Goodness, Joel! I don't believe that's anywhere in the Bible. Sounds
more like one of those old heathens you're so fond of reading. And
anyway," continued Persis firmly, frustrating her brother's evident
intention to argue the point. "I can't look it up now. Mis' West's
down-stairs."
"Come to discuss the weighty question o' clothes, I s'pose. 'Bonnets and
ornaments of the legs, wimples and mantles and stomachers,' as the
prophet says. And that's of more importance than to satisfy the cravings
of a troubled mind. If the world was given up to the tender mercies o'
women, there'd be no more inventions except some new kind of
crimping pin, and nothing would be written but fashion notes."
"I'll have to go now, Joel." Persis Dale, having supported her brother
from the time she was a girl of seventeen, had enjoyed ample
opportunity to become familiar with his opinion of her sex. As the
manly qualities had declined in Joel, his masculine arrogance had
waxed strong. The sex instinct had become concentrated in a sense of
superiority so overwhelming that the woman was not born whom Joel
would not have regarded as a creature of inferior parts, to be patronized
or snubbed, as the merits of the case demanded.
"Do you want a drink of water?" Persis asked, running through the
familiar formula. "Shall I get you a fan, or smooth out the sheets? Then
I guess I'll go down, Joel. I wouldn't pound any more for a while, if I
was you. 'Twon't do any good."
The sound of voices greeted her, as she descended the stairs, Mrs.
West's asthmatic tones blending with the flutey treble of a young girl.
"It's Diantha," thought Persis, her lips tightening. "I might have known
that Annabel Sinclair would send for that waist two days before it was
promised."

The young girl sitting opposite Mrs. West was perched lightly on the
edge of her chair like a bird on the point of flight, and the skirt of her
blue cotton frock was drawn down as far as possible over a
disconcerting length of black stocking. Her fair hair was worn in curls
which fell about her shoulders. Fresh coloring and regularity of feature
gave her a beauty partially discounted by an expression of resentful
defiance, singularly at variance with her general rosebud effect.
"Mother sent me to see if her waist was ready, Miss Persis." Diantha
spoke like a child repeating a lesson it has been kept after school to
learn.
"It won't be done till Saturday, Diantha. I told your mother Saturday
when she sent the goods over."
The girl rose nimbly, the movement revealing unexpected height and
extreme slenderness, both qualities accentuated by her very juvenile
attire. She made a bird-like dart in the direction of the door, then
turned.
"Mother said I was to coax you into finishing it for to-morrow," she
announced, a light mockery rasping under the melody of her voice. "I
know it won't do any good, but I've got to be obedient. Please consider
yourself coaxed."
"No, it won't do any good, Diantha. The waist'll be ready about two
o'clock on Saturday." Persis stood watching the girl's retreating figure,
and the serenity of her face was for the moment clouded.
"Diantha Sinclair reminds me of a Lombardy poplar," remarked Mrs.
West. "Nothing but spindle till you're most to the top. It does seem
fairly immoral, such a show o' stockings."
"Annabel Sinclair