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“There, she knew a good deal, but she didn’t know all, especially o’ doctorin’,” insisted Sarah Ellen from the rocking-chair, with an unexpected little laugh. “She used to lay down the law to me as if I had neither sense nor experience, but when it came to her bad spells she’d always send for me. It takes everybody to know everything, but Sister Barsett was of an opinion that her information was sufficient for the town. She was tellin’ me the day I went there how she disliked to have old Mis’ Doubleday come an’ visit with her, an’ remarked that she called Mis’ Doubleday very officious. ‘Went right down on her knees an’ prayed,’ says she. ‘Anybody would have thought I was a heathen!’ But I kind of pacified her feelin’s, an’ told her I supposed the old lady meant well.”

“Did she give away any of her things?–Mis’ Barsett, I mean,” inquired Mrs. Crane.

“Not in my hearin’,” replied Sarah Ellen Dow. “Except one day, the first of the week, she told her oldest sister, Mis’ Deckett,–’twas that first day she rode over–that she might have her green quilted petticoat; you see it was a rainy day, an’ Mis’ Deckett had complained o’ feelin’ thin. She went right up an’ got it, and put it on an’ wore it off, an’ I’m sure I thought no more about it, until I heard Sister Barsett groanin’ dreadful in the night. I got right up to see what the matter was, an’ what do you think but she was wantin’ that petticoat back, and not thinking any too well o’ Nancy Deckett for takin’ it when ’twas offered. ‘Nancy never showed no sense o’ propriety,’ says Sister Barsett; I just wish you’d heard her go on!

“If she had felt to remember me,” continued Sarah Ellen, after they had laughed a little, “I’d full as soon have some of her nice crockery-ware. She told me once, years ago, when I was stoppin’ to tea with her an’ we were havin’ it real friendly, that she should leave me her Britannia tea-set, but I ain’t got it in writin’, and I can’t say she’s ever referred to the matter since. It ain’t as if I had a home o’ my own to keep it in, but I should have thought a great deal of it for her sake,” and the speaker’s voice faltered. “I must say that with all her virtues she never was a first-class housekeeper, but I wouldn’t say it to any but a friend. You never eat no preserves o’ hers that wa’n’t commencin’ to work, an’ you know as well as I how little forethought she had about putting away her woolens. I sat behind her once in meetin’ when I was stoppin’ with the Tremletts and so occupied a seat in their pew, an’ I see between ten an’ a dozen moth millers come workin’ out o’ her fitch-fur tippet. They was flutterin’ round her bonnet same’s ’twas a lamp. I should be mortified to death to have such a thing happen to me.”

“Every housekeeper has her weak point; I’ve got mine as much as anybody else,” acknowledged Mercy Crane with spirit, “but you never see no moth millers come workin’ out o’ me in a public place.”

“Ain’t your oven beginning to get overhet?” anxiously inquired Sarah Ellen Dow, who was sitting more in the draught, and could not bear to have any accident happen to the supper. Mrs. Crane flew to a short-cake’s rescue, and presently called her guest to the table.

The two women sat down to deep and brimming cups of tea. Sarah Ellen noticed with great gratification that her hostess had put on two of the best tea-cups and some citron-melon preserves. It was not an every-day supper. She was used to hard fare, poor, hard-working Sarah Ellen, and this handsome social attention did her good. Sister Crane rarely entertained a friend, and it would be a pleasure to speak of the tea-drinking for weeks to come.