Just now it was the question of the hat. There was indeed no question as to whether she needed it or not, but her husband’s means kept her within certain limits.
To make a whole hat would cost very nearly five dollars; if other people did it for less, she wasn’t able to. And Mr. Beatoun, the clergyman, had said that he wanted to make an appeal to each one personally. Each one must judge for himself if he were doing all he could to pay off that debt on the church for which he urged the special effort now.
To Mrs. Briarley the question seemed to have relation to those deep places of decision which govern the current of one’s life. If she refused this appeal she would not be quite what the mother of Emily ought to be.
She was painfully anxious that Emily should have every advantage. She herself had been a neglected orphan, brought up in helter-skelter fashion, and she longed above all things that her baby should have the maternal ideal she had lacked. She was glad that Mr. Beatoun’s sermon had come after she had bought little Emily’s hat, for she felt secretly that no appeal could have been strong enough to have denied that sweet white ribbon and the daisies to her child.
“If I had any trimming that could be used!” she murmured for the third time, and turned as the servant came into the room. “What is it, Ellen?”
“There’s a lady down-stairs, ma’am—Mrs. Stebbins.”
“Oh, Mrs. Stebbins!” Mrs. Briarley’s tone was one of doubtful welcome.
This was one of the ladies of the parish in which Mrs. Briarley was a newcomer, and in which she still felt herself wistfully an outsider, in spite of the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Beatoun had formally called upon her, and Mrs. Stebbins had conscientiously shaken hands with her at the church door.
But Mrs. Stebbins had also once come to collect, and to collect now, in addition to an appeal, would be futile as far as Mrs. Briarley was concerned.
She nerved herself to meet the words that followed after the first greetings were over.