Divers Women by Mrs. C.M. Livingston;Pansy
page 100 of 187 (53%)
page 100 of 187 (53%)
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suppose that there was no thinking done by Mrs. Williams. She
superintended all her work and did much of her own sewing; as her family was not small and her income not large, and she kept but one servant, it took a vast deal of thinking and worrying to keep the Williams family up to the standard, which was one not of neatness and comfort simply, but that she should live in the same style as those of her friends whose incomes were possibly twice as large as her own, that her children's clothes should be just as fine and as fashionably made as theirs, that she herself should be able to make as good an appearance as the best when she went into society, that her parlour should be furnished as far as in her lay, with all the elegance and taste that the law of the fashionable world required. This was the grand aim to which she bent all her energies. Mrs. Williams was a member in good and regular standing of an orthodox church. She regularly occupied her pew in the sanctuary, and when she had no other engagement, attended the weekly prayer-meeting, but the most persistent and zealous member of the "Ladies' Foreign Missionary Society" had never succeeded in inducing her to attend their monthly meetings, but just once. She took pains to explain it carefully to her conscience that she believed in Foreign Missions, but that didn't prove that it was necessary for her to spend a whole afternoon each month hearing dry reports and "papers" about countries with outlandish names. What good did that do anyway? It was mysterious--how ladies could do justice to their families and spend so much time out. As for herself she could scarcely keep up with her calls. But then! they neglected their families, of course they did; women that were always on a committee for something or other, and running off here and there to all kinds of meetings. Very likely, too, it just suited some women to get up on a platform before an |
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