r and Kitton
Pa

the invitations said, and the "Pa" was divined to imply "Please answer."

"It's Kitton's money an' it's his daughter. I hed to hev him in it
somehow," Mrs. Ricker explained her double signature. "You see," she
added, "up till now I ain't never been situate' so's Emerel _could_ come
out. I've always wanted to give her things, too, but 't seems like when
I've tried, everything's shook its fist at me. It ain't too late. Emerel
looks just like she did fifteen years ago, don't she?"

It was at once observed that if Emerel shared her mother's enthusiasm
for the project, she did not betray it. But then no one knew much about
Emerel save that she was engaged, and had been so for some years, to big
Abe Daniel, the Methodist tenor, a circumstance wholly unconsidered in
the scheme of her debut.

Quite simply and with happy pride, Mrs. Ricker and Kitton issued her
invitations to every one in the village who had ever employed her. And
the village was divided against itself.

"How can we?" Mis' Postmaster Sykes demanded, "I ask you. There's things
to omit an' there's things to observe. We should be The Laughing Stock."

"The Laughing Stock," variously echoed her followers.

On the other hand:--

"Land, o' course we'll all go," Mis' Amanda Toplady comfortably settled
it, "an' take Emerel a deboo present, civilized. The dear child."

And to that many of us gladly assented, Timothy, big Amanda's little
husband, going so far as to add:

"I do vum, the Sykeses feels the post-office like it was that much
oats."

A day later Timothy's opinion seemed, he thought, to be verified. Mis'
Postmaster Sykes issued "written invites to an evening party, hot supper
and like that," as Friendship communicated it, to be given on the very
night of Emerel's debut.

Friendship was shaken. Never in the history of the village had two
social affairs been set for the same hour. Indeed, more than one hostess
had postponed an impending tea-party or thimble party or "afternoon
coffee" or "five o'clock supper" on hearing that another was planned for
the same day. And now, when there were those of us anxious to "do
something nice" for hard-working little Mrs. Ricker, the Sykeses had
deliberately sought the forbidden ground. And Society dare not deny Mis'
Sykes, for besides "being who she was" ("She's the leader in Friendship
if they _is_ a leader," we said, emphatically implying that there was
none), she kept two maids,--little y