"And didn't she say too, that the Gregorys ought to have been hung if they weren't?"
"Such impertinence," muttered Mrs. Reeves, while Jessie rejoined:
"There are very few families, which, if traced to the fountain head, have not a halter, or a peddler's cart, or a smell of tallow, or shoemaker's wax——"
"Or a woollen factory, Jessie. Don't forget that," suggested Mrs. Bartow, and Jessie added, laughingly:
"Yes, a woollen factory, and as you and grandma do not belong to the few who are exempt from a stain of any kind, if honorable work can be called a stain, I advise you to drop old scores, and let the past be forgotten."
"I'm sure I'm willing," sobbed Mrs. Bartow. "I never did tell that ridiculous story to but one, and she promised not to breathe it as long as she lived."
"And will you take it back?" chimed in Mrs. Reeves.
"Ye-es. I'll do everything I can toward it," answered the distracted old lady. "I couldn't help those Thayers. I never saw them in my life, and they were only second cousins."
"Fourth to you, then," and Mrs. Reeves nodded to Jessie, who replied:
"I don't care if they were first. Everybody knows me, and my position in society does not depend upon what my family have been before me, but upon what I am myself. Isn't it so, father?" and she turned to Mr. Graham, who had just entered the room.