What are you going to wear, anyway?"

"Mother," said Jennie, impressively, turning away from her squash to
get a view of her mother's face, "I ought to have a new dress for
this party. I haven't anything fit to be seen. It is months since I
have had a new one; and everybody is sick of my old blue dress; I'm
sure I am."

"It is entirely out of the question," Mrs. Brower said, irritably,
"and you know it is. I _wonder_ at your even thinking of such a
thing, and we so many bills to pay; and there's that pew-rent hasn't
been paid in so long that I'm ashamed to go to church."

"I wish the pew-rent was in Jericho, and the pew, too!" was Miss
Jennie's spirited answer. "I should think churches ought to be free,
if nothing else is. It is a great religion, selling pews so high that
poor people can't go to church. If I had thought I couldn't have a
new dress I should have declined the invitation at once. I did think
it was time for me to have something decent; and I make my own
clothes, too, which is more than most any other girls do. I saw a way
to make it this morning. I studied Miss Harvey's dress all the while
we were standing. I could make trimming precisely like hers, and put
it on and all. I could do every thing to it but cut and fit it."

"I tell you you haven't anything to cut and fit, and can't have.
What's the use in talking?"

And in her annoyance and motherly bitterness at having to disappoint
her daughter, Mrs. Brower let fall the glass jar she had been trying
to open, and it opened suddenly, disgorging and mingling its contents