I should have been sorry to have had the child's feelings hurt.

Flora laid the trousers on the table and came back to her seat
without a word, and I know that Mrs. White sat up nearly all night
ripping them, and cutting them over, and sewing them together again,
in season to have them packed in the barrel the next day.

In the mean time, Mrs. Jameson was finding the place in her book;
and just as Mrs. Peter Jones had asked Mrs. Butters if it were true
that Dora Peckham was going to marry Thomas Wells and had bought her
wedding dress, and before Mrs. Butters had a chance to answer her
(she lives next door to the Peckhams), she rapped with the scissors
on the table.

"Ladies," said she. "Ladies, attention!"

I suppose we all did stiffen up involuntarily; it was so obviously
not Mrs. Jameson's place to call us to order and attention. Of course
she should have been introduced by our President, who should herself
have done the rapping with the scissors. Flora Clark opened her mouth
to speak, but Mrs. White clutched her arm and looked at her so
beseechingly that she kept quiet.

Mrs. Jameson continued, utterly unconscious of having given any
offence. We supposed that she did not once think it possible that we
knew what the usages of ladies' societies were. "Ladies," said she,
"I am sure that you will all prefer having your minds improved and
your spheres enlarged by the study and contemplation of one of the
greatest authors of any age, to indulging in narrow village gossip.
I will now read to you a selection from Robert Browning."