r, as sharp and unexpected as the slash of her own
too-impulsive scissors, came forward with a run.

"You got it?" she inquired.

Mrs. Waterman laughed richly, and set her umbrella in the corner. Then,
still holding one hand closed upon the check, she untied her hat and
fanned herself with it during the relief of sinking into a seat.

"Do let me get my breath," she besought, yet as if she prolonged the
moment for the sake of the dramatic weight the tale demanded. "Seems if
I never experienced such a day as this. It's hotter'n any fall I ever
see."

"You look very warm, Martha," said Ellen Bayliss, in her gentle way. She
was sitting by the window, bending over an embroidered square, the sun
on her soft curls and delicate cheek unveiling the look of middle life,
yet doing something kindly, too; for though he showed the withered
texture of her skin, he brought out the last fleck of gold in her hair,
and balanced sadness with some bloom. Ellen had been accounted a beauty,
and her niece Nellie was a beauty now, of a more radiant type. She was
the rose of life, but aunt Ellen had the fragrance of roses in a jar.

"You sewin', Ellen?" Martha inquired, as if she were willing to shift
the topic from what would exact continued speech from her, and at least
defer her colleagues' satisfaction. "You're the only one that's brought
their thimble, I'll be bound."

"It's only this same centrepiece," Ellen answered, holding it up. "Mrs.
Hilton told me if I'd send it after her, she'd give me three dollars for
it. I thought I could turn the money into the fund."

"You got it?" Lydia Vesey cried again, as if she could not possibly
crowd her interest under, and this time she had reenforcements from
without. Mrs. Daniel Pray, who was almost a giantess and bent
laboriously over to accommodate her height to her husband's, took off
her glasses and laid them on her declivitous lap, the better to fix
Martha with her dull, small eyes.

"I'll be whipped if I believe you've got it, after all," she offered
discontentedly. "Mebbe they're goin' to send by mail."

Martha looked at her a moment, apparently in polite consideration, but
really wondering, as she often did, if anything would thicken the hair
at Mrs. Pray's parting. She frequently, out of the strength of her
address and capability, had these moments of musing over what could be
done.

"Speak up, Marthy, can't ye?" ended Mrs. Pray irritably, now putting on
her glasses again as if, h