All began at once on the subject of help, and were as suddenly
quenched by the reappearance of Temperance, with fresh waffles, and a
dish of apple-fritters.

"Do eat these if you can, ladies; the apples are only russets, and
they are kinder dead for flavoring. I see you don't eat a mite; I
expected you could not; it's poor trash." And she passed the cake
along, everybody taking a piece of each kind.

After drinking a good many cups of tea, and praising it, their
asceticism gave way to its social effect, and they began to gossip,
ridiculing their neighbors, and occasionally launching innuendoes
against their absent lords. It is well known that when women meet
together they do not discuss their rights, but take them, in revealing
the little weaknesses and peculiarities of their husbands. The worst
wife-driver would be confounded at the air of easy superiority assumed
on these occasions by the meekest and most unsuspicious of her sex.
Insinuations of So and So's not being any better than she should
be passed from mouth to mouth, with a glance at me; and I heard the
proverb of "Little pitchers," when mother rose suddenly from the
table, and led the way to the parlor.

"Where is Veronica?" asked Temperance, who was piling the debris
of the feast. "She has been in mischief, I'll warrant; find her,
Cassandra."

She was upstairs putting away her butterfly, in the leaves of her
little Bible. She came down with me, and Temperance coaxed her to eat
her supper, by vowing that she should be sick abed, unless she