e would have done in her own church,
raising her solitary voice with great emphasis. It would not have
been so ludicrous had not poor Mr. Jameson, evidently seeing the
mistake, and his face blazing, yet afraid to desert his wife's
standard, followed her dutifully just a few words in the rear. While
Mrs. Jameson was beside the still waters, Mr. Jameson was in the
green pastures, and so on. I pitied the Jameson girls. Harriet looked
ready to cry with mortification, and Sarah looked so alarmed that I
did not know but she would run out of the church. As for Cobb, he
kept staring at his mother, and opening his mouth to speak, and
swallowing and never saying anything, until it seemed as if he might
go into convulsions. People tried not to laugh, but a little
repressed titter ran over the congregation, and the minister's voice
shook. Mrs. Jameson was the only one who did not appear in the least
disturbed; she did not seem to realize that she had done anything
unusual.
Caroline Liscom was not at church--indeed, she had not been much
since the boarders arrived; she had to stay at home to get the
dinner. Louisa and I wondered whether she was relieved or disturbed
at losing her boarders, and whether we should ever know which. When
we passed the Wray house on our way home, and saw the blinds open,
and the fresh mould in the garden, and the new shingles shining on
the hen-house roof, we speculated about it.
"Caroline had them about nine weeks, and at fifteen dollars a week
she will have one hundred and thirty-five dollars," said Louisa.
"That will buy her something extra."
"I know that she has been wanting some portieres for her parlor, and
a new set for her spare chamber, and maybe that is what she will
get," said I. And I said furthermore that I hoped she would feel paid
for her hard work and the strain it must have been on her mind.
Louisa and I are not very curious, but the next day we did
watch--though rather furtively--the Jamesons moving into the old Wray
house.
All day we saw loads of furniture passing, which must have been
bought in Grover. So many of the things were sewed up in burlap that
we could not tell much about them, which was rather unfortunate.
It was partly on this account that we did not discourage Tommy
Gregg--who had been hanging, presumably with his mother's connivance,
around the old Wray house all day--from reporting to us as we were
sitting on the front doorstep in the twilight. Mrs. Peter Jone
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