t
after the cyclone there might not be any children to cover, and a few
of the younger members tittered; but we never took Flora's speeches
seriously. She always came to the sewing meeting, no matter how much
she opposed it, and sewed faster than any of us. She came that
afternoon and made three flannel petticoats for three of the
children, though she did say that she thought the money would have
been better laid out in palm-leaf fans.

We were astonished to see Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson come that very
hot afternoon, for we knew that she considered herself delicate,
and, besides, we wondered that she should feel interested in our
sewing circle. Her daughter Harriet came with her; Madam Cobb, as
I afterward learned, went, instead, to Mrs. Ketchum's, and stayed
all the afternoon, and kept her from going to the meeting at all.

Caroline Liscom came with her boarders, and I knew, the minute I saw
her, that something was wrong. She had a look of desperation and
defiance which I had seen on her face before. Thinks I to myself:
"You are all upset over something, but you have made up your mind
to hide it, whether or no."

Mrs. Jameson had a book in her hand, and when she first came in she
laid it on the table where we cut out our work. Mrs. Liscom went
around the room with her, introducing her to the ladies whom she had
not met before. I could see that she did not like to do it, and was
simply swallowing her objections with hard gulps every time she
introduced her.

Harriet walked behind her mother and Mrs. Liscom, and spoke very
prettily every time she was addressed.

Harriet Jameson was really an exceedingly pretty girl, with a kind of
apologetic sweetness and meekness of manner which won her friends.
Her dress that afternoon was pretty, too: a fine white lawn trimmed
with very handsome embroidery, and a white satin ribbon at the waist
and throat. I understood afterward that Mrs. Jameson did not allow
her daughters to wear their best clothes generally to our village
festivities, but kept them for occasions in the city, since their
fortunes were reduced, thinking that their old finery, though it
might be a little the worse for wear, was good enough for our
unsophisticated eyes. But that might not have been true; Harriet
was very well dressed that afternoon, at all events.

Mrs. Jameson seemed to be really very affable. She spoke cordially
to us all, and then asked to have some work given her; but, as it
happened, there