She recalled the reflection she had seen in her mirror before
she left--the old black silk in the mode of thirty years
agone and the queer little bonnet of shirred black satin.
She thought how absurd she must look in the eyes of her world.
As a matter of fact, she did not look in the least absurd.
Some women might have; but the Old Lady's stately distinction
of carriage and figure was so subtly commanding that it did
away with the consideration of garmenting altogether.
The Old Lady did not know this. But she did know that Mrs. Kimball,
the storekeeper's wife, presently rustled into the next pew in
the very latest fashion of fabric and mode; she and Mrs. Kimball
were the same age, and there had been a time when the latter had been
content to imitate Margaret Lloyd's costumes at a humble distance.
But the storekeeper had proposed, and things were changed now;
and there sat poor Old Lady Lloyd, feeling the change bitterly,
and half wishing she had not come to church at all.
Then all at once the Angel of Love touched their foolish thoughts,
born of vanity and morbid pride, and they melted away as if they had
never been. Sylvia Gray had come into the choir, and was sitting just
where the afternoon sunshine fell over her beautiful hair like a halo.
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