Here, take mine." Rosa hesitated a little.

"Well--no--I think not." Miss Lucas laughed at her, and quizzed her so on her allowing a man to interfere in such sacred things as dress and cosmetics, that she came back irritated with her husband, and gave him a short answer or two.
Then he asked what was the matter.
"You treat me like a child--taking away my very puff." "I treat you like a beautiful flower, that no bad gardener shall wither whilst I am here." "What nonsense! How could that wither me?
It is only violet powder--what they put on babies." "And who are the Herods that put it on babies ?" "Their own mothers, that love them ten times more than the fathers do." "And kill a hundred of them for one a man ever kills.

Mothers!--the most wholesale homicides in the nation.

We will examine your violet-powder: bring it down here." While she was gone he sent for a breakfast-cupful of flour, and when she came back he had his scales out, and begged her to put a teaspoonful of flour into one scale and of violet powder into another.

The flour kicked the beam, as Homer expresses himself.
"Put another spoonful of flour." The one spoonful of violet powder outweighed the two of flour.
"Now," said Staines, "does not that show you the presence of a mineral in your vegetable powder?
I suppose they tell you it is made of white violets dried, and triturated in a diamond mill.