rbara went out and nailed up the woodbines. Then
she put on her hat, and took a great bundle that had been waiting for
a week for somebody to carry, and said she would go round to South
Hollow with it, to Mrs. Dockery.

"You will be tired to death. You are tired already, hammering at those
vines," said mother, anxiously. Mothers cannot help daughters much in
these buzzes.

"I want the exercise," said Barbara, turning away her face that was at
once red and pale. "Pounding and stamping are good for me." Then she
came back in a hurry, and kissed mother, and then she went away.

CHAPTER XII.

EMERGENCIES.

Mrs. Hobart has a "fire-gown." That is what she calls it; she made it
for a fire, or for illness, or any night alarm; she never goes to bed
without hanging it over a chair-back, within instant reach. It is of
double, bright-figured flannel, with a double cape sewed on; and a
flannel belt, also sewed on behind, and furnished, for fastening, with
a big, reliable, easy-going button and button-hole. Up and down the
front--not too near together--are more big, reliable, easy-going
buttons and button-holes. A pair of quilted slippers with thick soles
belong with this gown, and are laid beside it. Then Mrs. Hobart goes
to bed in peace, and sleeps like the virgin who knows there is oil in
her vessel.

If Mrs. Roger Marchbanks had known of Mrs. Hobart's fire-gown, and
what it had been made and waiting for, unconsciously, all these years,
she might not have given those quiet orders to her discreet, well-bred
parlor-maid, by which she was never to be "disengaged" when Mrs.
Hobart called.

Mrs. Hobart has also a gown of very elegant black silk, with deep,
rich border-folds of velvet, and a black camel's-hair shawl whose
priceless margin comes up to within three inches of the middle; and in
these she has turned meekly away from Mrs. Marchbanks's vestibule,
leaving her inconsequential card, many wondering times; never
doubting, in her simplicity, that Mrs. Marchbanks was really making
pies, or doing up pocket-handkerchiefs; only thinking how queer it was
it always happened so with her.

In her fire-gown she was destined to go in.

Barbara came home dreadfully tired from her walk to Mrs. Dockery's,
and went to bed at eight o'clock. When one of us does that, it always
breaks up our evening early. Mother discovered that she was sleepy by
nine, and by half past we were all in our beds. So we really had a
fair half night