The Shoulders of Atlas | Page 9

laid away without a back breadth to her dress."
With that Sylvia crossed the room and the hall, and entered the parlor.
She closed the door behind her. When she came out a few minutes later
she was pale but triumphant. "There," said she, "it's back with her, and
I've got just this much to say, and no more, Flora Barnes. When you get
home you gather up all the back breadths you've got, and you do them
up in a bundle, and you put them in that barrel the Ladies' Sewing
Society is going to send to the missionaries next week, and don't you
ever touch a back breadth again, or I'll tell it right and left, and you'll
see how much business you'll have left here, I don't care how sickly it
gets."
"If father would--only have joined the trust I never would have thought
of such a thing, anyway," muttered Flora. She was vanquished.
"You do it, Flora Barnes."
"Yes, I will. Don't speak so, Mrs. Whitman."
"You had better."
The undertaker and his son-in-law and Henry had remained quite silent.
Now they moved toward the door, and Flora followed, red and
perspiring. Sylvia heard her say something to her father about the trust
on the way to the gate, between the tall borders of box, and heard

Martin's surly growl in response.
"Laying it onto the trust," Sylvia said to Henry--"such an awful thing as
that!"
Henry assented. He looked aghast at the whole affair. He seemed to
catch a glimpse of dreadful depths of feminity which daunted his
masculine mind. "To think of women caring enough about dress to do
such a thing as that!" he said to himself. He glanced at Sylvia, and she,
as a woman, seemed entirely beyond his comprehension.
The whole great house was sweet with flowers. Neighbors had sent the
early spring flowers from their door-yards, and Henry and Sylvia had
bought a magnificent wreath of white roses and carnations and smilax.
They had ordered it from a florist in Alford, and it seemed to them
something stupendous--as if in some way it must please even the dead
woman herself to have her casket so graced.
"When folks know, they won't think we didn't do all we could," Sylvia
whispered to Henry, significantly. He nodded. Both were very busy,
even with assistance from the neighbors, and a woman who worked out
by the day, in preparing the house for the funeral. Everything had to be
swept and cleaned and dusted.
When the hour came, and the people began to gather, the house was
veritably set in order and burnished. Sylvia, in the parlor with the chief
mourners, glanced about, and eyed the smooth lap of her new black
gown with a certain complacency which she could not control. After
the funeral was over, and the distant relatives and neighbors who had
assisted had eaten a cold supper and departed, and she and Henry were
alone in the great house, she said, and he agreed, that everything had
gone off beautifully. "Just as she would have wished it if she could
have been here and ordered it herself," said Sylvia.
They were both hesitating whether to remain in the house that night or
go home. Finally they went home. There was an awe and strangeness
over them; besides, they began to wonder if people might not think it
odd for them to stay there before the will was read, since they could not

be supposed to know it all belonged to them.
It was about two weeks before they were regularly established in the
great house, and Horace Allen, the high-school teacher, was expected
the next day but one. Henry had pottered about the place, and attended
to some ploughing on the famous White grass-land, which was
supposed to produce more hay than any piece of land of its size in the
county. Henry had been fired with ambition to produce more than ever
before, but that day his spirit had seemed to fail him. He sat about
gloomily all the afternoon; then he went down for the evening mail,
and brought home no letters, but the local paper. Sylvia was preparing
supper in the large, clean kitchen. She had been looking over her new
treasures all day, and she was radiant. She chattered to her husband like
a school-girl.
"Oh, Henry," said she, "you don't know what we've got! I never
dreamed poor Abrahama had such beautiful things. I have been up in
the garret looking over things, and there's one chest up there packed
with the most elegant clothes. I never saw such dresses in my life."
Henry looked at his wife with eyes which loved her face, yet saw it as it
was, elderly and plain, with all its youthful