“Friends believe not in hymns or singing,” remarked Mrs. Owen as they turned to retrace their steps. “But there is something about the intoning of the psalms that calms the mind. It has ever brought comfort to me.”
“Mother,” spoke Peggy shyly.
“Yes, my daughter.”
“The one thing that I have always minded about the Friends is that very lack of music. When I see other girls play the spinet I too would like dearly to play upon it. I have always loved music, mother.”
“I know thee has, Peggy. That is the reason that I have not chided thee when I heard thee singing the ballads and songs of the world’s people. Perhaps some time we may see our way to thy learning the spinet. If it is right thee will be led to it.”
“I know,” answered Peggy. And then, after a moment—“What troubled thee, mother?”
“Vanities, child. ’Twas the dressing, and the pomade, and the powder discovered in the meeting. I have never seen so much before. And also, I shame to confess it, Peggy, thy garb troubled me.”
“Mine, mother?” Peggy looked up in amazement, and then glanced down at her girlish frock of chintz. “Why, mother?”
“In the first enthusiasm of the war,” said Mrs. Owen, “thee remembers how we, thou and I, together with many patriotic women and girls, banded together in an association formed against the use of foreign goods. We pledged ourselves to wear homespun rather than buy any of the foreign calicoes and silks. Before the Declaration every patriotic woman was known by her clothes, and it so continued until we left the city at the coming of the British. Of course, now that the line of separation hath been drawn between Britain and her colonies, there no longer exists the same patriotic reason for such abstinence; but we seem to be the last to come to such knowledge.”
“Mother, I never knew thee to be concerned anent such things before,” said the girl quickly.