new-style Brussels carpet with a border, or her full, fresh,
Nottingham lace curtains, or the new covering of her drawing-room
set with cuir-colored terry. Mrs. Tom Friske and Mrs. Philgry, down
here at East Square, would run in, and appreciate, and admire, and
talk it all over, and go away perhaps breaking the tenth commandment
amiably in their hearts.

Mrs. Ledwith's nerves had extended since we saw her as a girl; they
did not then go beyond the floating ends of her blue or rose-colored
ribbons, or, at furthest, the tip of her jaunty laced sunshade; now
they ramified,--for life still grows in some direction,--to her
chairs, and her china, and her curtains, and her ruffled
pillow-shams. Also, savingly, to her children's "suits," and party
dresses, and pic-nic hats, and double button gloves. Savingly; for
there is a leaven of grace in mother-care, even though it be
expended upon these. Her friend, Mrs. Inchdeepe, in Helvellyn Park,
with whom she dined when she went shopping in Boston, had _nothing_
but her modern improvements and her furniture. "My house is my
life," she used to say, going round with a Canton crape duster,
touching tenderly carvings and inlayings and gildings.

Mrs. Megilp was spending the day with Laura Ledwith; Glossy was gone
to town, and thence down to the sea-shore, with some friends.

Mrs. Megilp spent a good many days with Laura. She had large, bright
rooms at her boarding-house, but then she had very gristly veal pies
and thin tapioca puddings for dinner; and Mrs. Megilp's constitution
required something more generous. She was apt to happen in at this
season, when Laura had potted pigeons. A little bird told her; a
dozen little birds, I mean, with their legs tied together in a