The band began in front with a bird's head and ended behind with
a bird's tail, and angels could have desired no more beautiful
toilette. That was her opinion, and it was shared to the full by
Rebecca.

But Emma Jane, as Rebecca had once described her to Mr. Adam
Ladd, was a rich blacksmith's daughter, and she, Rebecca, was a
little half-orphan from a mortgaged farm "up Temperance way,"
dependent upon her spinster aunts for board, clothes, and
schooling. Scotch plaid poplins were manifestly not for her, but
dark-colored woolen stuffs were, and mittens, and last winter's
coats and furs.

And how about hats? Was there hope in store for her there? she
wondered, as she walked home from the Perkins house, full of
admiration for Emma Jane's winter outfit, and loyally trying to
keep that admiration free from wicked envy. Her red-winged black
hat was her second best, and although it was shabby she still
liked it, but it would never do for church, even in Aunt
Miranda's strange and never-to-be-comprehended views of suitable
raiment.

There was a brown felt turban in existence, if one could call it
existence when it had been rained on, snowed on, and hailed on
for two seasons; but the trimmings had at any rate perished quite
off the face of the earth, that was one comfort!

Emma Jane had said, rather indiscreetly, that at the village
milliner's at Milliken's Mills there was a perfectly elegant pink
breast to be had, a breast that began in a perfectly elegant