Miss Perkins just knew the Groateses civilly, and no more. She did not like them or care to know them better. Jessie, on the contrary, had somehow slipped into a fast-growing intimacy, and, after the frequent fashion of young people, she gave much more ardent love to the new friends than to the old.
Perhaps this was not altogether surprising, since she had chosen the new friends for herself, while the others had been chosen for her. But she seldom spoke of the Groateses to the Mokeses or even to her aunt: not from any wish for secrecy, but simply because such speaking was apt to produce a snubbing. The growth of her new friendship was not fully understood therefore by others.
Mokes' shop was a genuine country concern, of a mixed and heterogeneous nature. Country shops are like country doctors: they go in for all round treatment. Specialists are a growth of town necessities.
The droll little old-fashioned windows—Groates' plate-glass panes were no copy of these—showed an astonishing assortment of articles within. On one side were groceries, using the word in its most elastic sense; on the other side were drapery goods, fancy articles, toys, wools, stationery. At the back was the Post-office. So Mokes had a good deal to attend to in his calling,—even with the help of his wife, of one very capable daughter, and of one most incompetent son. He had only two children, not seven like Groates.
Exactly opposite Groates' Store was a creeper-grown cottage, much after the model of Periwinkle Cottage, which stood in like manner just opposite Mokes' shop; and on the little gate of the tiny front garden, a more slip of bed and gravel, was a plate intimating that here resided "The Misses Coxen, Dressmakers."
On this particular afternoon the two sisters sat, as indeed was their usual habit, close to the prim little bay-window, one on either side, occasionally moving their respective needles, but on the whole more intent upon the outer than upon the inner world.
They were a well-meaning pair of little women; and they took an enormous interest in their neighbours' concerns,—not an unkind interest, though at times a degree meddlesome in kind.
It was no doubt natural that they should take this interest, since they really had no concerns of their own, beyond the new dress for the butcher's wife, or the latest frock for the linen-draper's little girl, or the question of how many darns were needed in the household linen each week, or the fluctuating health of their dearly beloved tabby cat, of Persian breed, the pride of the whole village.
[CHAPTER V]
TWO LITTLE DRESSMAKERS