be. She's goin' to have a dress cut out of it, an' she's comin' back
to wear it, too. You'll see she is comin' home to wear it."

Eva cut wildly into the silk with mad slashes of her gleaming
shears, while two neighboring women, who had just come into the
room, stared aghast, and even Fanny was partly diverted from her
sorrow.

"She's crazy," whispered one of the women, backing away as she
spoke.

"Oh, Eva, don't; don't do so," pleaded Fanny, tremulously.

"I be," said Eva, and she cut recklessly up the front breadth.

"You ain't cutting it right," said the other neighbor, who was
skilful in such matters, and never fully moved from her own
household grooves by any excitement. "If you are a-goin' to cut it
at all, you had better cut it right."

"I don't care how I cut it," returned Eva, thrusting the woman away.
"Oh, I don't care how I cut it; I want to waste it. I will waste
it."

The other neighbor backed entirely out of the room, then turned and
fled across the yard, her calico wrapper blowing wildly and lashing
about her slender legs, to her own house, the doors of which she
locked. Presently the other woman followed her, stepping with the
ponderous leisure which results from vastness of body and philosophy
of mind. The autumn wind, swirling in impetuous gusts, had little