"I am no enemy of piety," I retorted. "In fact, I hardly noticed her
clothes at all, except to think that their simplicity gave her a sort
of Priscilla air that was fetching."

Tim softened. "That's it exactly," he said. "But, Mark, you should
have seen Mary Warden when she came here."

"From where?" I asked.

"From Kansas. She lived in some big town out West, and when her mother
died there was no one left to her but Luther Warden, her uncle. He
sent for her, and now she is living with him. The old man sets a great
store by her."

Luther Warden is rich. He has accumulated a fine lot of property above
Six Stars--several good farms, a mill and a tannery; but even the
chance of inheriting all these did not seem fair compensation for being
his niece and having to live with him. He was good to a fault. He
exuded piety. Six days of the week he worked, piling up the passing
treasures of this world. One whole day he preached, striving for the
treasures in that to come. You could not lay a finger on a weak spot
in his moral armor, but Tip Pulsifer protected from the assaults of
Satan only by a shield of human skin, always seemed to me the better of
the two. Tip wore leaky boots all last winter, but when spring came he
bought Mrs. Pulsifer a sewing machine. Have you ever worn leaky boots
when the snow was banked fence high? Luther Warden's boots never leak.
They are always tight and well tallowed. His horses and his cows
waddle in their fat, and the wool of his flocks is the longest in the
valley. Luther gets up with the sun and goes to bed with it. Some in