"The back breadth," replied Flora in a small, scared voice, like the
squeak of a mouse.

"Whose back breadth?"

"Her back breadth."

"_Her_ back breadth?"

"Yes."

"Robbing the dead!" said Sylvia, pitilessly. Her tense voice was
terrible.

Flora tried to make a stand. "She hadn't any use for it," she
squeaked, plaintively.

"Robbing the dead! Its bad enough to rob the living."

"She couldn't have worn that dress without any back breadth while she
was living," argued Flora, "but now it don't make any odds. It don't
show."

"What were you going to do with it?"

Flora was scared into a storm of injured confession. "You 'ain't any
call to talk to me so, Mrs. Whitman," she said. "I've worked hard,
and I 'ain't had a decent black silk dress for ten years."

"How can you have a dress made out of a back breadth, I'd like to