“Oh, no, Tabitha! Don’t be sure of any such thing. They couldn’t be exaggerated; they wouldn’t bear it. Candidly now, can you think of a single man in the place whom you would like to hear mentioned as entertaining the shadow of a hope that some time he might be—what shall I say?—allowed to cherish the possibility of becoming the—the son-in-law of my mother?”
“I didn’t think your mind ran on such—”
“And it doesn’t,” broke in the girl, “not in the least, I assure you. I put it in that way merely to show you what I mean. You can’t associate on terms of equality with people who would almost be put out of the house if they ventured to dream of asking you to marry them. Both sides are at a disadvantage. Don’t you see what I mean? There is a wall between them. That is why I say we have no friends here; money brings us nothing that is of value; this isn’t like a home at all.”
“Why, and everybody is talking of how much Thessaly has improved of late years. And quite nice people coming in, too! They say the Bidwells, who already talk of building a second factory for their button business—they say they moved in very good society indeed at Troy. I’ve met Mrs. Bid-well twice at church sociables—the stout lady, you know, with the false front. They seem quite a knowable family.”
Kate did not reply, but drummed on the window-pane and watched the fierce quarrels of some English sparrows flitting about on the frozen snow outside. Miss Tabitha went on with more animation than sequence:
“Of course you’ve heard of the club they’re going to start, or have started; they call it the Thessaly Citizens’ Club.”
“Who? the Bidwells?”
“Oh, dear, no! The young men of the village—or I suppose it will soon be a city now. They tell all sorts of stories about what this club is going to do; reform the whole town, if you believe them. I always understood a club was for men to drink and play cards and sit up to all hours in, but it seems this is to be different. At any rate, several clergymen, Dr. Turner among them, have joined it, and Horace Boyce was elected president.”
The sparrows had disappeared, but Kate made no answer, and musingly kept her eyes fastened on the snow where the disagreeable birds had been.
“Now, there’s a young man,” said Miss Tabitha, after a pause. Still no comment came from the window, and so the elder maiden drifted forward: