The judge descended the stairs, monumental in black frock coat, gray trousers, and the lately polished shoes that were like shining relief maps of a hill country.  He carried a lustrous silk hat, which he now paused to make more lustrous, his fingers clutching a sleeve of his coat and pulling it down to make a brush.  The hat was the only item of the judge’s regal attire of which the Wilbur twin was honestly envious—­it was so beautiful, so splendid, so remote.  He had never even dared to touch it.  He could have been left alone in the room with it, and still would have surveyed it in all respect from a proper distance.

Mrs. Penniman came next, rustling in black silk and under a flowered hat that Winona secretly felt to be quite too girlish.  Then Winona from the door of her room above called to the twins, and they ascended the stairway for a last rite before the start for church, the bestowal of perfume upon each.  Winona stood in the door of her room, as each Sunday she stood at this crisis, the cut-glass perfume bottle in hand.  The twins solemnly approached her, and upon the white handkerchief of each she briefly inverted the bottle.  The scent enveloped them delectably as the handkerchiefs were replaced in the upper left pockets, folded corners protruding correctly.  As Wilbur turned away Winona swiftly moistened a finger tip in the precious stuff and drew it across the pale brow of Merle.  It was a furtive tribute to his inherent social superiority.

Winona, in her own silk—­not black, but hardly less severe—­and in a hat less girlish than her mother’s, rustled down the stairs after them.  Speech was brief and low-toned among the elders, as befitted the high moment.  The twins were solemnly silent.  Amid the funereal gloom, broken only by a hushed word or two from Winona or her mother, the judge completed his fond stroking of the luminous hat, raised it slowly, and with both hands adjusted it to his pale curls.  Then he took up his gold-headed ebony cane and stepped from the dusk of the parlour into the light of day, walking uprightly in the pride of fine raiment and conscious dignity.  Mrs. Penniman walked at his side, not unconscious herself of the impressive mien of her consort.

Followed Winona and Merle, the latter bearing her hymn book and at some pains keeping step with his companion.  Behind them trailed the Wilbur twin, resolving, as was his weekly rule, to keep himself neat through church and Sunday-school—­yet knowing in his heart it could not be done.  Already he could feel his hair stiffening as the coating of soap dried upon it.  Pretty soon the shining surface would crack and disorder ensue.  What was the use?  As he walked carefully now he inhaled rich scent from the group—­Winona’s perfume combining but somehow not blending with a pungent, almost vivid, aroma of moth balls from the judge’s frock coat.