Mrs. Lathrop, come here, I've got a surprise for you."

Mrs. Lathrop forthwith ceased to gaze fondly and absent-mindedly over
her half-acre of domain, and advanced to the fence. Miss Clegg also
advanced to the fence, and upon its opposite sides the following
conversation took place.

"I went to see Mrs. Macy yesterday afternoon," Miss Clegg began, "an' I
saw her an' that's what the surprise come from."

"She isn't--" asked Mrs. Lathrop anxiously.

"Oh, no, she's all right--that is, she's pretty nearly all right, but I
may remark as the sight an' hearin' of her this day is a everlastin'
lesson on lettin' women be women an' allowin' men to keep on bein' men
for some years to come yet. Mrs. Macy says for her part she's felt that
way all along but every one said it was her duty an' she says she always
makes a point of doin' her duty, an' this time it was goin' to give her
a free trip to town, too, so the hand of Providence seemed to her to be
even more'n unusually plainly stuck out at her."

"Oh," said Mrs. Lathrop--"you mean--"

"Of course I do," said Susan, "but wait till I tell you how it come out.
It's come out now, an' all different from how you know."

"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop.

"Well, you wait an' listen," said the friend,--"you wait an' listen an'
then you'll know, too."

"I--" said Mrs. Lathrop, submissively.

"She says," Miss Clegg went on, "that we all know (an' that's true, too,
'cause I told you that before) as she was never much took with the idea
even in the first of it. She says as she thinks as Elijah's ideas is
gettin' most too progressive an' if he ain't checked we'll very soon
find ourselves bein' run over by some of his ideas instead of pushed
forward. She says woman's clubs is very nice things an' Mrs. Lupey takes
a deal of pleasure with the one in Meadville (whenever they don't meet
at her house)--but Mrs. Macy says our sewin' society ain't no club an'
never was no club, an' she considers as it was overdrawin' on Elijah's
part to start the question of its sendin' a delegate to any federation
of any kind of woman's clubs. She says she can't see--an' she said at
the meetin' as elected her, that she couldn't see--what our sewin'
society could possibly get out of any convention, for you can buy all
the patterns by mail now just as well as if you have 'em all to look
over. An' then she says, too, as no one on the face of kingdom come
could ever be crazy enough to suppose as any convention could