“Not an order exactly,” explained Imogen, when they had welcomed her. “But poor Mr. Sibthorpe has gone at last, and Blanche proposed that we should spare the widow and three unmarried daughters the expense of bonnets and veils; so we are making them and the widow’s caps out of work hours. We do our charity work at such odd times you know—and together.
“You are the Blessed Three Sisters—that everybody knows!” uttered the visitor. “I don’t believe I could set a stitch for that tribe of lazy locusts! Amelia, the married one, is no better. Her husband failed awhile ago, as you may remember, and she is too proud to help him in the small haberdasher’s shop he has lately set up; sits at home like a—I won’t say lady—but an idiotic automaton—”
“Who ever heard of an intellectual one?” laughed Blanche.
“No pertness, miss! I don’t pick my terms when I am excited. She sits in the small parlor over the store, as I was saying, and curries favor with wealthy and charitable ladies by cutting sponge and velvet into monkey and black-and-tan terrier pen-wipers for fancy fairs. What are the Sibthorpe’s going to do, now that the man they murdered among them is dead?”
“His life was insured”—began Emma.
“Humph!” interrupted Mrs. Harding. “You needn’t proceed. They will eat the insurance up to the last dollar, and by that time the boys will be big enough to divide the women among them; to carry them bodily—their expenses, that is—as we see ants running about with egg sacs bigger than themselves on their shoulders. I know the old, hideous story by heart. Drop the subject.”
“Let me give you a piece of news that will entertain you better,” said Blanche, merrily. “One of the Payne girls—Sophia, the youngest—is going to marry a widower with eight children—all at home.”
“Serves her right! But I am sorry for the children. Go on!”
“The happy man is a Mr. Gregorias, of Spanish extraction. He is small and withered, and reported to be rich as cream. So Arethusa says. The wedding dress is to be of white satin, with point lace veil and flounces—the gift of the groom.”
“Have you undertaken the trousseau?” queried Mrs. Harding, fixing her keen gaze upon Imogen.