"Well, they do, and perhaps they're half right; there, you needn't color so! I won't say you're not above them, but you mustn't feel so. Did you ever think, Sara, that you might get up a circle of ten here?"
"Why, no."
"Well, why not? It wouldn't hurt the girls, nor you either," dryly. "Anyhow, I want you to go to this quilting, wear that pretty new dress, and be just as nice and cordial as you know how."
Sara sighed, but acquiesced. She had always obeyed Miss Prue, but this was a trial. She wondered, all the way home, just why it should seem so. Did she really feel above the other girls, that they failed to interest her? Was it pride that made her long for quiet, and her books, rather than for the society about her? Could it be she only cared for Miss Prue because she was richer and better born than the others?
"No!" she said emphatically to that last, "I should love her in rags, I'm sure; but I do like her better because she is neat and trim, and can talk intelligently about anything. I wonder if it's wrong to feel so? I must remember that being a King's daughter makes it more necessary that I should be thoughtful for all. How prettily madame explained those two words, 'Noblesse oblige' to me. 'The nobility of my birth constrains me.' So, if I call myself one of the royal family, how courteous and kind I must be to every one, whether agreeable or not."
Thus, when the Wednesday came which was to see Betty's quilt upon the frames, Sara left baby, with many instructions, to the children; and, dressed in her best, wended her way to the low brown house in the edge of the pine grove, where Betty lived with her parents, and an overflowing household of younger children, and whence she was not sorry to go to the smaller, but less crowded cottage of young Nathan Truman, second mate of a schooner, of whom she was as proud and fond as if he had been captain of an East Indiaman, with both a town and country house. To-day the front room, which resembled Sara's, only that its furniture was far more battered and worn, was cleared of everything but a row of chairs, which followed the length of its four walls in lines as even and true as those of an infantry regiment "dressed up" to the toe- mark for inspection; and through the centre, upon the rude and clumsy frame, was stretched a quilt of wonderful construction and a blinding confusion of colors. It was a "Remembrance Quilt," Betty explained, as soon as the company had arrived and filled the funereal rows of chairs, being pieced from bits given her by all of her friends and acquaintances.
"Here," she said, indicating a point of brick-red calico which helped to form a many-rayed figure, whose round centre was in bright yellow, "is the first new dress ma had after she got merried, and here," indicating a lilac muslin with white spots, "is her weddin' gown itself. Then there's a bit of the dress 'at was found on thet gal 'twas cast ashore ten year ago; and there's a piece o' thet one 't Zeba Osterhaus hed on when she hed her pictur' took, an' these," blushing brightly, "are scraps o' my own dresses thet I ain't wearin' yet. Then there's hunderds more, but I guess you'll reco'nize most on 'em. I've pieced it 'star- pattern', ye see,—an' do ye know?—there's one thousand an' ninety pieces in thet thar very quilt!"
There was a universal cry of admiration and astonishment at this triumphant announcement.
"How long did it take you?" asked Zeba, examining the pattern and workmanship with renewed interest.
"Wall, I've been at it now this goin' on two year; kep' it fur ketch-up work, ye know."