Charlotte had not shed a tear when she took them
out of the chest and shook off the sprigs of lavender which she had
laid over them; but it seemed to her that she could smell that faint
elusive breath of lavender across the meeting-house when Sylvia came
in, and the rustle of her bridal-gown was as loud in her ears as if
she herself wore it.
"Somebody might just as well have them, and have some good of them,"
she had told her mother, and she spoke as if they were the garments
of some one who was dead.
"Seems to me, as much as they cost, you'd ought to wear 'em
yourself," said her mother.
"I never shall," Charlotte said, firmly; "and they might just as well
do somebody some good." Charlotte's New England thrift and practical
sense stretched her sentiment on the rack, and she never made a
sound.
Barney, watching out from his window that Sunday, caught a flash of
green and purple from Sylvia's silken skirt as she turned the corner
of the old road with Richard. "She's got on Charlotte's
wedding-dress. She's--given it to her," he said, with a gasp. He had
never forgotten it since the day Charlotte had shown it to him. He
had pictured her in it, hundreds of times, to his own delight and
torment. He had a fierce impulse to rush out and strip his
Charlotte's wedding-clothes from this other bride's back.
"She's gone and given it away, and she hasn't got a good silk dress
herself; she's wearing her old cloak to meeting," he half sobbed to
himself.
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