The three settled themselves in the parlor. Lois sat beside the
window, her hands folded meekly in her lap; her mother and Mrs.
Maxwell knitted.

"Don't you do any fancy-work, Lois?" asked Mrs. Maxwell.

"No, she don't do much," replied her mother for her.

"Don't she? I'd like to know! Now Flora, she does considerable. She's
makin' a real handsome tidy now. She'll show you how, Lois, if you'd
like to make one. It's real easy an' it don't cost a great deal--but
then cost ain't much object to you." Mrs. Maxwell laughed an
unpleasant snigger. Then she resumed: "Some tidies would look real
handsome on some of them great bare chairs over to your house; there
ain't one there so far as I know. Thomas he wouldn't never have a new
thing in the house; he was terrible set and notional about it and he
was terrible tight with his money. I don't care if I do say it;
everybody knows it; an' I don't see why it's any worse to say things
that's true about the dead than the livin'. With some folks it's all
'Oh, don't say nothin'; he's dead. Cover it all up; he's buried an'
bury it too, an' set all the roses an' pinks a-growin' over it.' I
tell you sometimes nettles will sprout, an' when they do, it don't
make it any better to call 'em pinks. Thomas Maxwell was terrible
tight. I ain't forgot how he talked because we bought this parlor
furniture and put big lights in the windows, an' had that iron fence.
Then my poor husband had gone into business with your husband, an'
they seemed to be making money. Why shouldn't he have bought a few
things we'd always done without, I'd like to know? You remember what
a time the old man made when we bought these things, Esther, I