"I accepted before I quarrelled with Uncle Cyrus, but I'll have to get out of it now."
"Oh, I wouldn't. All the pretty girls in town will be there."
"Are there any plain ones? And what becomes of them?"
"The Lord only knows! Old Judge Bassett used to say that there wouldn't be any preserves and pickles in the world if all women were born good-looking. I declare I never realized how small the tower of Saint James' Church is!"
For a moment he hesitated, and when he spoke his voice had taken a deeper tone. "Will Virginia Pendleton be at the party?" he asked.
"She wouldn't miss it for anything in the world. Miss Willy Whitlow was sewing there yesterday on a white organdie dress for her to wear. Have you ever seen Jinny in white organdie? I always tell Lucy the child looks sweet enough to eat when she puts it on."
He laughed again, but not as he had laughed at her description of Abby. "Ask her please to put blue bows on her flounces and a red rose in her hair," he said.
"Then you are going?"
"Not if I can possibly keep away. Oh, Cousin Priscilla, why didn't I inherit my soul from your side of the family."
"Well, for my part I don't believe in all this talk about inheritance. Nobody ever heard of inheriting anything but money when I was a girl. You've got the kind of soul the good Lord wanted to put into you and that's all there is about it."