en, what
could one expect of a woman whose only education had been at the
Dinwiddie Academy for Young Ladies? To Jenny, education had usurped the
place which the church had always occupied in the benighted mind of her
mother. All the evils of our civilization--and these evils shared with
the working woman the first right to her attention--she attributed to
the fact that the former generations of women had had either no
education at all, or worse even than that, had had the meretricious
brand of education which was supplied by an army of Miss Priscillas. For
Miss Priscilla herself, entirely apart from the Academy, which she
described frankly, to Virginia's horror, as "a menace," she entertained
a sincere devotion, and this ability to detach her judgments from her
affections made her appear almost miraculously wise to her mother, who
had been born a Pendleton.

"No, I'm not tired. Is there anything I can help you about, mother?" she
asked, for she was a good child and very helpful--the only drawback to
her assistance being that when she helped she invariably commanded.

"Oh, no, darling, I'll be through presently--just as soon as I get this
trunk packed. Lucy's things are lovely. I wish you had come in time to
see them. Miss Willy and I spent all yesterday running blue ribbons in
her underclothes, and though we began before breakfast, we had to sit up
until twelve o'clock so as to get through in time to begin on the trunks
this morning."

Her eyes shone as she spoke, and she would have enjoyed describing all
Lucy's clothes, for she loved pretty things, though she never bought
them for herself, finding it impossible to break the habit of more than
twenty years of economy; but Jenny, who was proud of her sincerity,
looked so plainly bored that she checked her flowing descriptions.

"I hope you brought something beautiful to wear to-morrow, Jenny?" she
ventured timidly, after a silence.

"Of course I had to get a new dress, as I'm to be maid of honour, but it
seemed so extravagant, for I had two perfectly good white chiffons
already."

"But it would have hurt Lucy, dear, if you hadn't worn something new.
She even wanted me to order my dress from New York, but I was so afraid
of wounding poor little Miss Willy--she has made my clothes ever since I
could remember--that I persuaded the child to let her make it. Of
course, it won't be stylish, but nobody will look at me anyway."

"I hope it is coloured, mother. You wear