“I can’t say as I do,” returned Mrs. Field.

“Why, seems to me it’s funny you don’t.  You sure?”

Mrs. Field nodded.

“Well, it’s queer you don’t.  He made an awful time over it; but the worst of it was over that image out in the yard.  I b’lieve he always thought my poor husband and yours failed up because we bought that image.  There was one thing about it, your husband wa’n’t never extravagant, though, was he?  Thomas Maxwell couldn’t say his son wasted his money, whatever else he said.  Your husband was always prudent, wa’n’t he, Esther?”

“Yes, I always thought Edward Maxwell was prudent,” returned Mrs. Field.

Lois, staring soberly and miserably out of the window, saw just then a stout girlish figure, leant to one side with the weight of a valise, pass hurriedly out of the yard.  She wondered if it was Flora Maxwell, and watched the pink flowers in her hat and the blue folds of her dress out of sight down the street.

“I guess your husband took after his father a little; I guess he was a little savin’,” said Mrs. Maxwell.  “I know Edward looked kind of scared when he came over one night an’ saw that image just after we’d got it set up, an’ he asked how much it cost.  It did cost considerable.  We didn’t ever tell anybody just how much; but I didn’t care; I’d always wanted one; an’ I made up my mind I’d rather have that if I had to go without some other things.  An’ my husband wanted it too; he was one of the Maxwells, you know, an’ I think they all had a taste for such things if they wa’n’t too tight to get ’em.  As for me, I had to do without all my young days, an’ I have to now except for the few things we got together along then when my poor husband seemed to be prospering; but I’ve always been crazy over images, an’ I’ve always thought one in a front yard was about the most ornamental thing anybody could have.  I’ve told Flora a good many times that I believed if I’d had advantages when I was young, I should have made images.  Don’t you think that one’s handsome, Esther?”

“Real handsome,” said Mrs. Field.

“Some folks have found fault with it because it didn’t have more clothes on, but it ain’t as if it was in a cemetery.  Of course it would have to be dressed different if it was.  An’ it ain’t anything but marble, when you come right down to it.  I think there’s such a thing as bein’ too particular, for my part, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” replied Mrs. Field, looking out at the marble figure.

“Well, I do.  Mis’ Jay said, after my husband died, that she should think I’d like to put up that image for a kind of monument for him.  I didn’t feel as if I could put up anything more than stones; but I did think a little of it, and I knew if I did, I should have to have some wings made on it, and a cape or a shawl over the neck and arms; but out here it’s different.  I look out at it a good many times, an’ I’m thankful it ain’t got any more on, clothes do get so out of fashion.  You know how they look in photographs sometimes.  I s’pose that’s the reason that the men who make these images don’t put any more on.  There!  I must show you my photograph album, Esther.”