“Dozens.  Ask Harrison about some of them.”

“Well, I never saw anything like her,” cried Polly, indignantly.  “I think she is perfectly heartless.”

“Oh, no, she isn’t.  She simply can’t hold more than one idea at a time.  Just now it’s the display she can make with her insurance money.  They insure each other and everything insurable, and go half naked in order to do so.  The system is perfectly dreadful, but no one can stop them.  Probably every man and woman on the place knows exactly what she will receive and half a dozen will come forward with money to lend her, sure of being paid back by this insurance company.  It all makes me positively sick, but there is no use trying to control them in that direction.  I don’t wonder Daddy Neil often says they were better off in the old days when a master looked after their well-being.”

An hour later Minervy was driving into Annapolis, three of her boon companions going with her, the “widderless orphans” being left to get on as best they could.  She spent the entire morning in town, returning about three o’clock with a wagonful of purchases.  Poor Joshua’s remains were being looked after by the Society and would later come to Severndale.

Mrs. Harold and the girls were sitting in the charming living-room when Jerome came to ask if Miss Peggy would speak with Minervy a moment.

“Oh, do bring her in here,” begged Mrs. Harold.

Peggy looked doubtful, but consented, and Jerome went to fetch the widow.

When she entered the room Mrs. Harold and the girls were sorely put to it to keep sober faces, for Minervy had certainly outdone herself; not only Minervy, but her entire brood which followed silently and sheepishly behind her.  Can Minervy’s “mourning” be described?  Upon her head rested a huge felt hat of the “Merry Widow” order, and encircling it was a veil of some sort of stiff material, more like crinoline than crape.  There were yards of it, and so stiff that it stuck straight out behind her like a horse’s tail.  Under the brim was a white WIDOW’S ruche.  Her waist was a black silk one adorned with cheap embroidery, and a broad belt displayed a silver buckle at least four inches in diameter, ornamented with a huge glass carbuncle at least half the buckle’s size.  On her own huge feet were a pair of shining patent-leather shoes sporting big gilt buckles, and each child wore patent-leather dancing POMPS.

“Why, Minervy,” cried Peggy, really distressed, “How could you?”

“Why’m, ain’ we jist right?  I thought I done got bargains wha’ jist nachally mak’ dat odder widow ‘oman tek a back seat an’ sit down.  She didn’t git no sich style when James up an died,” answered Minervy, reproach in her tone and eyes.

“But, Minervy,” interposed Mrs. Harold.  “That bright red stone in the buckle; how can you consider that mourning?  And your veil shouldn’t stick—­I mean it ought to hang down properly.”