I went into the room and looked around. It was full of women, wonderfully dressed women, all in low necks and short sleeves, and white shoes—laughing, giggling women, who looked over each others naked shoulders into a great broad looking-glass crowded full of faces that couldn't seem to admire themselves enough.
I stopped at the door. I scarcely breathed. What could all those rosy-cheeked, bare-armed ladies be doing in that house?
I asked this question, of course, of Cousin Dempster, who came into the hall a-pulling his white gloves on.
"Dempster," says I, in a low voice, "what does this mean? Where are the ministers?"
"Oh, they are in the back room. You didn't expect them to be turned in with the ladies, did you?"
"Well," says I, "it is customary in our State now, though it was not formerly, when the men sat on one side at prayer-meetings, and the girls on the other, but I didn't think that notion had got to foreign parts."
I don't think Dempster heard me clearly, for that minute his wife came out of the room, blazing like the whole milky-way of stars.
"Why, Phœmie," says she, a-holding up both the white kid gloves she had just buttoned on, "you don't mean to go down with that bonnet on?"
"I should think you would be ashamed to go into a conference or a prayer-meeting with it off," says I, severely.
E. E. stared at Dempster, and he stared at her. Then he hitched up his shoulders, and she gave her hands a little toss in the air.