Mary E. Wilkins

“ It seemed like the folks whom it sheltered, out in the full glare of day, without any little kindly shade between itself and the dull, unfeeling stare of curiosity. The almshouse stood upon rising ground, so one could see it for a long distance. It was a new building, Mansard-roofed and well painted. The village took pride in it: no town far or near had such a house for the poor. It was so fine and costly that the village did not feel able to give its insane paupers separate support in a regular asylum ”

“ Handy's face turned a deep pink—even her little ears and her delicate old neck were suffused; her blue eyes looked like an enraged bird's. "Crooked! H'm! I shouldn't think that folks that's got a nose like some folks had better say much about other folks' noses. There can't nobody tell me nothin' about my nose; I know all about it. Folks that wouldn't wipe their feet on some folks, nor look twice at 'em, has praised it. My nose ain't crooked an' never was, an' if anybody says so it's 'cause they're so spity, 'cause they're so mortal homely themselves. ”

“ Their present was to them a state of simple existence, they regarded their future with a vague resignation; they were none of them thinkers, and there was no case of rapturous piety among them. In their pasts alone they took real comfort, and they kept, as it were, feeling of them to see If they were not still warm with life. ”

“ But after her momentary subsidence she aroused herself; her blue eyes gleamed dimly at the stout old woman. "It was a handsome cap when it was new, anyhow!" said she; "better'n some folks ever had, I'll warrant. Folks that ain't got no caps at all can't afford to be flingin' at them that has, if they ain't quite so nice as they was. You'd orter have seen the cap I had when my daughter was married! All white wrought lace, an' bows of pink ribbon, an' long streamers, an' some artificial roses on't. ”

“ The stout old woman surveyed her contemptuously. "Well, good looks don't amount to much, nohow," said she, "if folks ain't got common-sense to balance 'em. I'd enough sight ruther know a leetle somethin' than have a dolly-face myself."
"Seems to me she is about the dretfulest-lookin' cretur that I ever did see," repeated the pretty old woman, quite unmoved. Aspersions on her intellect never aroused her in the least.
The stout old woman looked baffled. "Jest turn your head a leetle that way, will you, Mis' Handy?" ”