g Caroline.
Then one day she came in and completely opened her heart to us with
that almost alarming frankness which a reserved woman often displays
if she does lose her self-restraint.

"I can't have it anyhow," said Caroline Liscom; and I must say I did
pity her, though I had a weakness for little Harriet. "I feel as if
it would kill me if Harry marries that girl--and I am afraid he will;
but it shall never be with my consent, and he shall never bring her
to my house while I am in it."

Then Caroline went on to make revelations about Harriet which were
actually dire accusations from a New England housewife like her.

"It was perfectly awful the way her room looked while she was at my
house," said Caroline; "and she doesn't know how to do one thing
about a house. She can't make a loaf of bread to save her life, and
she has no more idea how to sweep a room and dust it than a baby. I
had it straight from Hannah Bell that she dusted her room and swept
it afterward. Think of my boy, brought up the way he has been,
everything as neat as wax, if I do say it, and his victuals always
cooked nice, and ready when he wanted them, marrying a girl like
that. I can't and I won't have it. It's all very well now, he's
captivated by a pretty face; but wait a little, and he'll find out
there's something else. He'll find out there's comfort to be
considered as well as love. And she don't even know how to do plain
sewing. Only look at the bottoms of her dresses, with the braid
hanging; and I know she never mends her stockings--I had it from the
woman who washes them. Only think of my son, who has always had his
stockings mended as smooth as satin, either going with holes in them,
or else having them gathered up in hard bunches and getting corns.
I can't and I won't have it!"

Caroline finished all her remarks with that, setting her mouth hard.
It was evident that she was firm in her decision. I suggested mildly
that the girl had never been taught, and had always had so much money
that she was excusable for not knowing how to do all these little
things which the Linnville girls had been forced to do.

"I know all that," said Caroline; "I am not blaming her so much
as I am her mother. She had better have stopped reading Browning
and improving her own mind and the village, and improved her own
daughter, so she could walk in the way Providence has set for a
woman without disgracing herself. But I am looking at her as she is,
without an