They took their tea with him,--the two families,--every Sunday
night. Agatha Ledwith "filled him in" a pair of slippers that very
first Christmas; he sat there in the corner with his old leather
ones on, when they came, and left them, for the most part, to their
own mutual entertainment, until the tea was ready. It was a sort of
family exchange; all the plans and topics came up, particularly on
the Ledwith side, for Mrs. Ripwinkley was a good listener, and Laura
a good talker; and the fun,--that you and I and Rachel Froke could
guess,--yes, and a good deal of unsuspected earnest, also,--was all
there behind the old gentleman's "Christian Age," as over brief
mentions of sermons, or words about books, or little brevities of
family inquiries and household news, broke small floods of
excitement like water over pebbles, as Laura and her daughters
discussed and argued volubly the matching and the flouncing of a
silk, or the new flowering and higher pitching of a bonnet,--since
"they are wearing everything all on the top, you know, and mine
looks terribly meek;" or else descanted diffusely on the
unaccountableness of the somebodies not having called, or the bother
and forwardness of the some-other-bodies who had, and the
eighty-three visits that were left on the list to be paid, and
"never being able to take a day to sit down for anything."

"What is it all for?" Mrs. Ripwinkley would ask, over again, the
same old burden of the world's weariness falling upon her from her
sister's life, and making her feel as if it were her business to
clear it away somehow.

"Why, to live!" Mrs. Ledwith would reply. "You've got it all to do,
you see."