As for Patty, her style of beauty, like Cephas Cole's ell had to
be toned down rather than up, to be effective, but circumstances
had been cruelly unrelenting in this process of late. Deacon
Baxter had given the girls three or four shopworn pieces of faded
yellow calico that had been repudiated by the village housewives
as not "fast" enough in color to bear the test of proper washing.
This had made frocks, aprons, petticoats, and even underclothes,
for two full years, and Patty's weekly objurgations when she
removed her everlasting yellow dress from the nail where it hung
were not such as should have
fallen from the lips of a deacon's daughter. Waitstill had taken
a piece of the same yellow material, starched and ironed it, cut
a curving, circular brim from it, sewed in a pleated crown, and
lo! a hat for Patty! What inspired Patty to put on a waist ribbon
of deepest wine color, with a little band of the same on the pale
yellow hat, no one could say.
"Do you think you shall like that dull red right close to the
yellow, Patty? " Waitstill asked anxiously.
"It looks all right on the columbines in the Indian Cellar,"
replied Patty, turning and twisting the hat on her head. "If we
can't get a peek at the Boston fashions, we must just find our
styles where we can!"
The various roads to Tory Hill were alive with vehicles on this
bright Sunday morning.
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