e, and at the usual hour
groups of ladies were seen wending their way towards the stately
mansion of Mrs. Campbell, the wealthiest and proudest lady in town.

Many, who for months had absented themselves from the society, came
this afternoon with the expectation of gaining a look at the costly
marble and rosewood furniture with which Mrs. Campbell's parlors were
said to be adorned. But they were disappointed, for Mrs. Campbell had
no idea of turning a sewing society into her richly furnished
drawing-rooms. The spacious sitting-room, the music-room adjoining,
and the wide cool hall beyond, were thrown open to all, and by three
o'clock they were nearly filled.

At first there was almost perfect silence, broken only by a whisper or
under tone, but gradually the restraint wore way, and the woman near
the door, who had come "because she was a mind to, but didn't expect
to be noticed any way," and who, every time she was addressed, gave a
nervous hitch backward with her chair, had finally hitched herself
into the hall, where with unbending back and pursed up lips she sat,
highly indignant at the ill-concealed mirth of the young girls, who
on the stairs were watching her retrograde movements. The hum of
voices increased, until at last there was a great deal more talking
than working. The Unitarian minister's bride, Lilly Martin's
stepmother, the new clerk at Drury's, Dr. Lay's wife's new hat and its
probable cost, and the city boarders at the hotel, were all duly
discussed, and then for a time there was again silence while Mrs.
Johnson, president of the society, told of the extreme destitution in
which she had that morning found a poor English family, who had moved
into the village two or three years before.

They had managed to earn a comfortable living until the husband and
father suddenly died, since which time the wife's health had been very
rapidly failing, until now she was no longer able to work, but was
wholly dependent for subsistence upon the exertions of her oldest
child Frank, and the charity of the villagers, who sometimes supplied
her with far more than was necessary, and again thoughtlessly
neglected her for many days. Her chief dependence, too, had now failed
her, for the day before the sewing society, Frank had been taken
seriously ill with what threatened to be scarlet fever.

"Dear me," said the elegant Mrs. Campbell, smoothing the folds of her
rich India muslin--"dear me, I did not know that we had such