Lois and her mother went in as they were directed, and sat down in two of the parlor chairs.  The room looked very grand to Mrs. Field.  She stared at the red velvet furniture, the tapestry carpet, and the long lace curtains, and thought, with a hardening heart, how, at all events, she was not defrauding this other woman of a fine parlor.  It was to her mind much more splendid than the sitting-room in the other house, with its dim old-fashioned state, and even than the great north parlor, whose furniture and paper had been imported from England at great cost nearly a hundred years ago.

Mrs. Maxwell did not appear for a half-hour.  Now and then they heard a scurry of feet, the rattle of dishes, and the closing of a door.  They sat primly waiting.  They had not removed their wraps.  Lois looked very pale against the red back of her chair.

“Don’t you feel well?” asked her mother.

“Yes, I feel well enough,” replied Lois.

“You look sick enough,” said her mother harshly.

Lois looked out of the window at the marble girl in the yard, and her mouth quivered.

Presently Mrs. Maxwell came, in her soft flurry of silk and old ribbons.  She had on a black lace head-dress trimmed with purple flowers, and she wore her black kid gloves.

“I’m real sorry I had to keep you waitin’ so long, Esther,” said she; “but we were kinder late about dinner.  Do take off your things.  Flora she’ll be down in a few minutes; she’s jest gone upstairs to change her dress an’ comb her hair.  It’s a beautiful day, ain’t it?”

The three settled themselves in the parlor.  Lois sat beside the window, her hands folded meekly in her lap; her mother and Mrs. Maxwell knitted.

“Don’t you do any fancy-work, Lois?” asked Mrs. Maxwell.

“No, she don’t do much,” replied her mother for her.

“Don’t she?  I’d like to know!  Now Flora, she does considerable.  She’s makin’ a real handsome tidy now.  She’ll show you how, Lois, if you’d like to make one.  It’s real easy an’ it don’t cost a great deal—­but then cost ain’t much object to you.”  Mrs. Maxwell laughed an unpleasant snigger.  Then she resumed:  “Some tidies would look real handsome on some of them great bare chairs over to your house; there ain’t one there so far as I know.  Thomas he wouldn’t never have a new thing in the house; he was terrible set and notional about it and he was terrible tight with his money.  I don’t care if I do say it; everybody knows it; an’ I don’t see why it’s any worse to say things that’s true about the dead than the livin’.  With some folks it’s all ‘Oh, don’t say nothin’; he’s dead.  Cover it all up; he’s buried an’ bury it too, an’ set all the roses an’ pinks a-growin’ over it.’  I tell you sometimes nettles will sprout, an’ when they do, it don’t make it any better to call ’em pinks.  Thomas Maxwell was terrible tight.  I ain’t forgot how he talked because we bought this parlor furniture and put big lights in the windows, an’ had that iron fence.  Then my poor husband had gone into business with your husband, an’ they seemed to be making money.  Why shouldn’t he have bought a few things we’d always done without, I’d like to know?  You remember what a time the old man made when we bought these things, Esther, I suppose?”