tack, so to speak, of improvement. She was
not so active in our literary society and our sewing circle as she
had been the summer before, but now, her own sphere having possibly
enlarged, she had designs upon the village in the abstract.

Hannah Bell came over from the West Corners to open the house for
them, and at five o'clock we saw the Grover stage rattle past with
their trunks on top, and Grandma Cobb and the girls and Cobb looking
out of the windows. Mrs. Jameson, being delicate, was, of course,
leaning back, exhausted with her journey. Jonas Martin, who had been
planting the garden, was out at the gate of the Wray house to help
the driver carry in the trunks, and Hannah Bell was there too.

Louisa and I had said that it seemed almost too bad not to have some
one of the village women go there and welcome them, but we did not
know how Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson might take it, and nobody dared go.
Mrs. White said that she would have been glad to make some of her
cream biscuits and send them over, but she knew that Mrs. Jameson
would not eat them, of course, and she did not know whether she would
like any of the others to, and might think it a liberty.

So nobody did anything but watch. It was not an hour after the stage
coach arrived before we saw Grandma Cobb coming up the road. We did
not know whether she was going to Amelia Powers', or Mrs. Jones', or
to our house; but she turned in at our gate.

We went to the door to meet her, and I must say she did seem glad to
see us, and we were glad to see her. In a very short time we knew
all that had happened in the Jameson family since they had left
Linnville, and with no urging, and with even some reluctance on our
part. It did not seem quite right for us to know how much Mrs.
Jameson had paid her dressmaker for making her purple satin, and
still less so for us to know that she had not paid for the making of
her black lace net and the girls' organdy muslins, though she had
been dunned three times. The knowledge was also forced upon us that
all these fine new clothes were left in New York, since the shabby
old ones must be worn out in the country, and that Harriet had cried
because she could not bring some of her pretty gowns with her.

"Her mother does not think that there is any chance of her making a
match here, and she had better save them up till next winter. Dress
does make so much difference in a girl's prospects, you know," said
Grandma Cobb shrewdly.

I th