"Eat when you can, Mr. Masters," said Mrs. Boddington; "you won't get hot biscuits anywhere in Pleasant Valley but here."
"Why not?" said Mr. Masters.
"It ain't the fashion—that's all."
"I s'pose you've seen the fashions to-day down at Elmfield, Mr. Masters," said Mrs. Salter. "They don't think as we hev' no fashions, up here in the mountains."
"Their fashions is ridiculous!" said Mrs. Flandin. "Do you think it's becomin', Mr. Masters, for Christian women to go and make sights of themselves?"
"In what way, Mrs. Flandin?"
"Why, goodness! you've seen 'em. Describin's impossible. Euphemie Knowlton, she came into church last Sabbath three yards in extent, ef she was a foot. It beat me, how she was goin' to get in. Why, there warn't room for but three of 'em in the slip, and it took 'em somethin' like half an hour to get fixed in their places. I declare I was ashamed, and I had to look, for all."
"So had I," assented Miss Carpenter. "I couldn't fairly keep my eyes off of 'em."
"And I'm certain she couldn't go agin the wind, with her bonnet; it stuck just right up from her face, and ended in a pint, and she had a hull garden in the brim of it, I think ministers had ought to preach about such doin's."
"And you don't know what ministers are good for if they don't?" said
Mr. Masters.