swappin' the queer things he said? an' when Tom
got the shoes done afore he promised, Len says to him, 'You're better'n
your word.' 'Well,' says Tom, 'I flew at 'em with all the venom o' my
specie.' An' it wa'n't a fortnight afore that speech come out in a New
York paper, an' then the Sudleigh 'Star' got hold on 't, an' so 't went.
If folks want that kind o' thing, they can git a plenty, _I_ say." She
set her lips defiantly, and looked round on the assembled group. This
was something she had meant to mention; now she had done it.

The informal meeting was aghast. A flavor of robust humor was accustomed
to enliven it, but not of a sort to induce dissension.

"There! there!" murmured Sally Ware. "It's the Sabbath day!"

"Well, nobody's breakin' of it, as I know of," said Mrs. Ellison. Her
eyes were brighter than usual, but she composed herself into a careful
disregard of annoyance. When desire of news assailed her, she could
easily conceal her personal resentments, cannily sacrificing small
issues to great. "I guess there's no danger o' Parson Bond's gittin'
into the paper, so long's he behaves himself; but if anybody's got eyes,
they can't help seein'. I hadn't been in the Bible class five minutes
afore I guessed how he was carryin' on. Has he begun to go with Isabel
North, an' his wife not cold in her grave?"

"Well, I think, for my part, he does want Isabel," said Mrs. Robbins
sharply, "an' I say it's a sin an' a shame. Why, she ain't twenty, an'
he's sixty if he's a day. My soul! Sally Ware, you better be settin'
your cap for my William Henry. He's 'most nineteen."

Miss Ware flushed, and her plump hands tightened upon each other under
her shawl. She was never entirely at ease in the atmosphere of these
assured married women; it was always a little bracing.

"Well, how's she take it?" asked Tilly, turning from one to the other.
"Tickled to death, I s'pose?"

"Well, I guess she ain't!" broke in a younger woman, whose wedding
finery was not yet outworn. "She's most sick over it, and so she has
been ever since her sister married and went away. I believe she'd hate
the sight of him, if 't wasn't the minister; but _'t is_ the minister,
and when she's put face to face with him, she can't help saying yes and
no."

"I dunno'," said Mrs. Page, with her unctuous laugh. "Remember the
party over to Tiverton t' other night, an' them tarts? You see, Rosanna
Maria Pike asked us all over; an' you know how flaky her pie-crust