"I guess a petticoat'll dry jest as quick if it's hung 'side of a nightgown," she told her critics, drily. "An' when you come to hangin' stockin's by the pair, better separate 'em, I say! Like man an' wife! Give 'em a vacation, once in a while, an' love'll live the longer!"
Dilly was thinking, this morning, of all the possibilities of the lovely, shining day. So many delights lay open to her! She could take her luncheon in her pocket, and go threading through the woods behind her house. She could walk over to Pine Hollow, to see how the cones were coming on, and perchance scrape together a basket of pine needles, to add to her winter's kindling; or she might, if the world and the desires thereof assailed her, visit Sudleigh Fair. Better still, she need account to nobody if she chose to sit there on the doorstone, and let the hours go unregretted by. Presently, her happy musing was broken by a ripple from the outer world. A girl came briskly round the corner where the stone-wall lay hidden under a wilderness of cinnamon rosebushes and blackberry vines,--Rosa Tolman, dressed in white _piqué_, with a great leghorn hat over her curls. The girl came hurrying up the path, with a rustle of starched petticoats, and still Dilly kept her trance-like posture.
"I know who 'tis!" she announced, presently, in a declamatory voice. "It's Rosy Tolman, an' she's dressed in white, with red roses, all complete, an' she's goin' to Sudleigh Cattle-Show."
Rosa lost a shade of pink from her cheeks. Her round blue eyes widened, in an unmistakable terror quite piteous to see.
"O Dilly!" she quavered, "how do you know such things? Why, you 'ain't looked at me!"
Dilly opened her eyes, and chuckled in keen enjoyment.
"Bless ye!" she said, "I can't help imposin' on ye, no more 'n a cat could help ketchin' a mouse, if't made a nest down her throat. Why, I see ye comin' round the corner! But when folks thinks you're a witch, it ain't in human natur' not to fool 'em. I _am_ a witch, ain't I, dear? Now, ain't I?"
Rosa's color had faltered back, but she still stood visibly in awe of her old neighbor.
"Well," she owned, "Elvin Drew says you can see in the dark, but I don't know's he means anything by it."