“Oh, thank you, m’m. It’s only the first week in June. I’m a very chilly person” (no one looking at her buxom proportions would have thought so!), “and a thick jacket is just what I’m needin’ terrible bad. And if you had a skirt, it ’ud be jest the size for my pore dear sister-in-law. Ah, I can feel for her, being a widow myself, and left with them children. She said to me on’y yesterday, ‘Jane, do try to get me a black skirt from anywhere, if on’y you can.’ She says——”
“But you told me just now that you hadn’t seen her since before her husband died,” blurted in Abigail, forgetful of her usual good manners, and begrudging to see the family wardrobe being disbursed in this way, as she rather regarded my coats and skirts as her perquisites.
Mrs. Price turned full upon Abigail that look of surprised innocence that stood her in such good stead. “She said it in a letter she writ me yesterday,” she replied with dignified composure.
Finally I told her I would look her out something if she sent Esmeralda up for it in the evening. Mrs. Price lingered to recite further tales of woe to Abigail, till she, kind girl, in spite of her private estimate of the lady, bestowed on her a pair of black lisle thread gloves, as she spoke so pathetically about having to go to the funeral with bare hands and not being able to afford any gloves.
When Virginia came in from “sticking” sweet peas in the garden, I told her about Mrs. Price.
“Well, I don’t consider her a worthy object for charity as a rule,” she remarked. “But at the same time, if Fate kindly supplies me with an opportunity to get rid of that big black hat of mine that I’ve never liked and never intend to wear again, I’m not the one to disregard it, especially as it will save my carrying that huge hat-box back to town. But whether she or the ‘sister-in-law-same-as’ wears it, either will find it good weight for the money.”
So we left the winter jacket, and the hat, and a black blouse Ursula added to the parcel, and my black cloth skirt for the sister-in-law, against Esmeralda should come for them. And then we started out to make some calls.
Passing Miss Primkins’ house, we just stopped to leave a book I had promised to lend her. Miss Primkins is a pleasant middle-aged lady, of very small independent means, who lives in a cottage by herself. The door stood open as usual. She looked over the stairs when I knocked, then explained that she would be down in a moment if we would go in.