"She is awfully late," said Lois. She looked at the door, and, so
doing, got a chance to observe the minister, who was standing beside
the flower-table talking to Ellen Dix. Fanny Dodge was busily
arranging some flowers, with her face averted. Ellen Dix was very
pretty, with an odd prettiness for a New England girl. Her pale olive
skin was flawless and fine of texture. Her mouth was intensely red,
and her eyes very dark and heavily shaded by long lashes. She wore at
the throat of her white dress a beautiful coral brooch. It had been
one of her mother's girlhood treasures. The Dix family had been
really almost opulent once, before the Andrew Bolton cataclysm had
involved the village, and there were still left in the family little
reminiscences of former splendor. Mrs. Dix wore a superb old lace
scarf over her ancient black silk, and a diamond sparkled at her
throat. The other women considered the lace much too old and yellow
to be worn, but Mrs. Dix was proud both of the lace and her own
superior sense of values. If the lace had been admired she would not
have cared so much for it.

Suddenly a little woman came hurrying up, her face sharp with news.
"What do you think?" she said to the others. "What do you think?"

They stared at her. "What do you mean, Mrs. Fulsom?" asked Mrs.
Whittle acidly.

The little woman tossed her head importantly. "Oh, nothing much,"
said she, "only I thought the rest of you might not know. Mrs.
Solomon Black has got another boarder. That's what's making her late.
She had to get something for her to eat."

"Another boarder!" said Mrs. Whittle.