ngs. They certainly won't touch him anywhere."

Mrs. Jameson only smiled in her calmly superior way at that, and we
concluded that she must be good-tempered. As for Flora, she said
nothing more, and we all felt much relieved.

Mrs. Jameson went to sewing on the trousers with the same confidence
with which she had cut them out; but I must say we had a little more
doubt about her skill. She sewed with incredible swiftness; I did not
time her exactly, but it did not seem to me that she was more than
an hour in making those trousers. I know the meeting began at two
o'clock, and it was not more than half-past three when she announced
that they were done.

Flora Clark rose, and Mrs. White clutched her skirt and held her back
while she whispered something. However, Flora went across the room to
the table, and held up the little trousers that we all might see.
Mrs. Jameson had done what many a novice in trousers-making does:
sewed one leg over the other and made a bag of them. They were
certainly a comical sight. I don't know whether Flora's sense of
humor got the better of her wrath, or whether Mrs. White's
expostulation influenced her, but she did not say one word, only
stood there holding the trousers, her mouth twitching. As for the
rest of us, it was all we could do to keep our faces straight. Mrs.
Jameson was looking at her book, and did not seem to notice anything;
and Harriet was sitting with her back to Flora, of which I was glad.
I should have been sorry to have had the child's feelings hurt.

Flora laid the trousers on the table and came back to her seat
without a word, and I know that Mrs. White sat up nearly all night
ripping them, and cutting them over, and sewing them together again,
in season to have them packed in the barrel the next day.

In the mean time, Mrs. Jameson was finding the place in her book;
and just as Mrs. Peter Jones had asked Mrs. Butters if it were true
that Dora Peckham was going to marry Thomas Wells and had bought her
wedding dress, and before Mrs. Butters had a chance to answer her
(she lives next door to the Peckhams), she rapped with the scissors
on the table.

"Ladies," said she. "Ladies, attention!"

I suppose we all did stiffen up involuntarily; it was so obviously
not Mrs. Jameson's place to call us to order and attention. Of course
she should have been introduced by our President, who should herself
have done the rapping with the scissors. Flora Clark opened her mouth
to sp