CHAPTER V
PHYLLIS AND BARBARA ENTER THE LISTS
AUNT HENRIETTA always stayed until November in her cottage near Marblehead. She said that she never enjoyed the ocean until she was alone with it, and Jessamy suggested afterward that it was a trifle hard on the ocean—a severe remark for Jessamy, whose genuinely high standards of good breeding forbade unkind comment on others—even on Aunt Henrietta, though she was trying.
Immediately on her return to town, Mrs. Hewlett came to look up "her fallen kindred," as Barbara said. That young lady went down to the parlor to conduct her great-aunt to her mother. "It would make a lovely title for a Sunday-school book, wouldn't it?" she said, turning from the glass, where she had been inspecting the last faint trace of the mishap to her nose. "'Little Barbara's Upward Leading,' or 'Toward the Skies,' or 'Helped Upward,' or 'Mounting Heavenward,' or even simply 'Uplifted.'"
"Barbara, I am ashamed of you!" said her mother, as severely as she could, while trying not to laugh.
"Now, Bab, do be nice," pleaded Jessamy.
"Nice! I'd like to know what could be nicer than to plan moral little titles like those?" said Bab, in an injured tone. "But don't worry; I'll be a sweet morsel when I get down there."