"Ain't you goin' to wear black?" Mrs. Wilson spoke now in double
italics.

"Oh, no! I don't feel called on to do that. I always liked bright
colors, and I don't know's 'twould be real honest in me to put on
mournin' when I didn't feel it."

"'Honor thy father'--" began Jane, in spite of her husband's warning
hand; but Lucindy interrupted her, with some perplexity.

"I have, Jane, I have! I honored father all my life, just as much as
ever I could. I done everything he ever told me, little and big! No,
though, there's one thing I never fell in with. I did cheat him once. I
don't know but I'm sorry for that, now it's all past and gone!"

Her cousin had been drumming absently on the window-sill, but he looked
up with awakened interest. Mrs. Wilson, too, felt a wholesale
curiosity, and she, at least, saw no reason for curbing it.

"What was it, Lucindy?" she asked. "The old hunks!" she repeated to
herself, like an anathema.

Lucindy began her confession, with eyes down-dropped and a faltering
voice.

"Father wanted I should have my hair done up tight and firm. So I
pretended I done the best I could with it. I told him these curls round
my face and down in my neck was too short, and I couldn't pin 'em up.
But they wa'n't curls, and they wouldn't ha' been short if I hadn't cut
'em. For every night, and sometimes twice a day, I curled 'em on a