"That was a lucky thought, that cape." Miss Prime resumed her thimble and her conversation together. "It don't seem to be worn as much as the rest, neither."
"No, it isn't; I only kept it for very cold days. I thought of it in church, Sunday, right in the middle of the sermon. Queer, wasn't it? I was so dreadfully afraid you couldn't get it out. So, as soon as I came home, I took it out and looked at it; sure enough, it was the very thing."
"I see Miss James has got a new cloak this winter. She hain't worn hers more than three winters, to my knowledge. Well, these rich people are jist as worldly, for all I see, as if they wasn't professors." Miss Prime was one of the most constant attendants of the church prayer-meetings, and saw "no beam in her own eyes."
"Time was, as you say, Miss Prime, when we were all plain people together, with good feelings towards each other. I think of it very often—the days when Susan Hubbard and I used to send our little presents to each other New Year's, and be neighborly all along. That was before the Jameses moved here, or lawyer Martin's people. She's so intimate with them now she hasn't got any time for old friends. Many and many's the time I've sent her things right off my table; and, when her Jane had the scarlet fever, I sat up with her night after night. But I don't mind that. What I look at is Christian professors being so taken up with dress, and going about, but dress particularly. It don't look right, and it isn't, according to Scripture."
It was a wearisome, fatiguing day to Mrs. Snelling, who did the whole work of her household. Her oldest son was learning his father's trade, and the dinner for the two had to be on the table precisely at twelve, for they had but an hour's nooning. So, scarcely were the breakfast things cleared away, when there were the meat and vegetables to prepare for "a boiled dinner;" and twice she was obliged to stand and be pinned up in the thick jean lining Miss Prime was fitting with unexampled tightness. The afternoon was no better; she had Tuesday's ironing to finish, her little boy was sick and fretful; though four years old, and very heavy, he required to be nursed and tended as if he had been a baby. She wanted to sew with Miss Prime; but, no sooner would she get her needle threaded, and her thimble on, than some new demand would be made upon her time, and so the short afternoon passed before she could stitch up a seam, and tea must be ready by dark. Besides all this, Miss Prime was disposed to continue her conversation with very little pause or stint, discussing the affairs of the neighborhood and the church with a train of moral, religious, and personal reflections. Every one knows how fatiguing it is to be expected to listen to such a discourse, and respond in the right place, even when the mind is unoccupied; and then the dress did not look nearly so well as Mrs. Snelling had figured it in her mind, the new pieces being several shades darker than the main body of the material. More discouraging than all, it needed "finishing off" when seven o'clock sounded the signal for the conference meeting Miss Prime would not miss on any account.
"I wouldn't mind staying over my time jist to give you a helpin' hand, if it wasn't church meetin' night; but, you know, it's very important all should be there that can. To be sure, Miss Hubbard is so took up with other things now, she never goes; and, though Miss James joined by letter when she came, she's never been to a business meeting. For my part, I think we've got just as good a right to vote in church meetin' as the men, and speak, too, if we want to, though Deacon Smith has set his face against it of late years. So, you see, I'll have to go; and there's only the facing to face down, and them side seams to stitch up, and the hooks and eyes to go on. The sleeves are all ready to baste in—oh, and there's the bones; but bones are nothing to put in—especially as John Lockwood is to be dealt with to-night for going to the theatre last time he was in New York. For my part, I never did put much faith in his religion—and the more some of us stay away, the more the rest of us ought to go. Don't forget to take in that shoulder seam a little. For my part, I think his sister ought to be labored with for singing such songs as she does on the piano. Clear love songs, and plays opera pieces, Miss Allen says. Now which is the worst, I'd like to know, going to the theatre or playing opera pieces? Miss Hubbard's Jane does that, when she's home in vacations, though. That piece under the arm don't look so very bad, Miss Snelling—there ain't more'n two hours' work, any way."
Two hours' work, to a person who could scarcely get time to do her mending from week to week, was no trifle. Mrs. Snelling wavered for a little while between the accumulating pile of dilapidated under-clothes in the willow basket and the unfinished dress; but the dress must be done before New Year's day, now close at hand, and she lighted another lamp, and drew her little workstand up to the fire, as the clock again struck eight. Her mind had opened itself to discontented thoughts in the morning, and "the enemy had come in like a flood," until all the brightness of her life had been swept out of sight. She saw only the successive woes of ill health, loss, and wearing anxiety which had rolled over them in the past, and a blank, dreary prospect for the future. Her very occupation reminded her of it. If she could have afforded Miss Prime's assistance two days instead of one, she might have got ahead in her sewing a little; now here was another drawback, and she had so little time. And "there was Susan Hubbard; but, then, she did not give up everything to dress and display, thank goodness! as Susan Hubbard did, bringing scandal in the church, and setting herself up over everybody."
A knock at the front door was a fresh annoyance; for the work had to be put down again, the sick boy quieted, before Mrs. Snelling went shivering through the cold, narrow hall to answer it.
The neighborly visitor was no other than Mrs. Hubbard; "and no fire except in the kitchen," was Mrs. Snelling's first thought, as she recognized her with a mixed feeling of gratification, "hard thoughts," and curiosity. Certainly it was a curious coincidence that the person who had formed the subject of her thoughts and conversation, so much of the day, should suddenly appear.
"Don't mind me," Mrs. Hubbard said, pleasantly, stepping on before her old neighbor. "This way, I suppose?" And she led the way to the kitchen herself, thus avoiding the necessity of an apology on the part of Mrs. Snelling. "How bright and cheerful a cook stove looks, after all! and your kitchen always was as neat as wax. We never used to keep but one fire, you know." This last was an unfortunate allusion. Mrs. Snelling's softening face grew coldly rigid at what she considered an attempt to patronize her.