When they went in the house was quiet and the kitchen dark. Mrs. Manning sat sewing. Their candles were on the table. Betty and Mrs. King said a cordial good-night.
The sisters-in-law were to come the next day, and grandmother Manning, with an addition of four children. The Salem sister, Mrs. Gates, was stout and pleasant; the farmer sister thin and with a troublesome cough, and she had a young baby besides her little girl of six. She was to make a visit in Salem, and doctor somewhat, to see if she could not get over her cough before cold weather.
The children were turned out of doors on the grassy roadside, where they couldn't hurt anything. Mrs. Gates and Betty helped in the kitchen, and after the dinner was cleared away Elizabeth was allowed to put on her second-best gingham and go out with the children. They ran and played and screamed and laughed.
"I'd a hundred times rather sit still and hear you talk," she said to Doris. "And I'm awful sorry to have you go to-morrow. Even when I am busy it is so nice just to look at you, with your beautiful hair and your dark eyes, and your skin that is like velvet and doesn't seem to tan or freckle. Foster hates freckles so."
Doris flushed at the compliment.
"I wonder how it would seem to be as pretty as you are? And you're not a bit set up about your fine clothes and all. I s'pose when you're born that way you're so used to it, and there aint anything to wish for. I'm so glad you could come. And I do hope you will come again."
They parted very good friends. Mrs. King had been quite generous to the small people, and Mrs. Manning really loved her sister, although she considered her very lax and extravagant. No one could tell what was before him, and thrift and prudence were the great virtues of those days. True, they often degenerated into penuriousness and labor that was early and late—so severe, indeed, it cost many a life; and the people who came after reaped the benefit.